Pragmatic Coders

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a precision medicine organization that provides accessible and affordable healthcare, particularly to underserved communities. I’m the head of support services, and I oversee non-clinical operations and internal technical components. 

We have several service offerings such as tribal care, workplace and film set safety programs surrounding COVID-19 response, and complete care, which is our precision health offering. For all of our services, we operate within a telemedicine model. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatic Coders?

In order to move forward and keep the economy going despite the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations needed to get their employees back to work and operate safely and effectively. We saw this as an opportunity to bring our clinical team and telemedicine model together to help these organizations as well as productions and film sets. 

We needed to create a patient portal that would enable us to provide this service to our clients and their employees, so we looked to Pragmatic Coders to quickly create this technology.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We met with Pragmatic Coders to identify and discuss the business needs. We then conducted discovery and research relative to what we needed the platform to provide. There really wasn’t an immediate need for an app so we opted to move forward with a mobile-responsive website.

The team has since partnered with us to design and implement this solution, meeting daily through an agile model and planning sprints every two weeks. In conjunction with the development, they also do ongoing maintenance.

There hasn’t been an end phase to the project because we continue to look at additional features and determine how to evolve the platform. Pragmatic Coders works to ensure that we could respond quickly to the needs of our clients as well as align and reiterate the platform to their ever-changing needs throughout the pandemic. 

What is the team composition?

It depends on where we are in the development cycle. At one point, we were working with as many as 12–16 people, which included a scrum master and people handling DevOps, design, and development. 

As we’ve progressed through the project, we’ve certainly scaled back the team to six people as we are now just doing maintenance and continuous iteration.

How did you come to work with Pragmatic Coders?

Pragmatic Coders were recommended to us by a prior organization that had leveraged them for development work. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $500,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the ongoing work in July 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We now have the ability to provide our service through a critical platform and help our clients with workplace, production, and film set safety, which is significant. 

At this point, we’ve had almost a dozen successful productions with no shutdowns, which supports the industry. We’ve helped our corporate clients stay open through the pandemic and keep their workforce safe. We had an organization that avoided a  warehouse shutdown because of the service we’re able to provide. None of these would’ve been possible without the platform; it’s been instrumental in our business. 

There are also quantifiable metrics in terms of our ability to efficiently and effectively provide the service. Pragmatic Coders implemented some features in the portal that have helped reduce our manual work by about one FTE (full-time equivalent). That has enabled us to scale and support more clients.

How did Pragmatic Coders perform from a project management standpoint?

We do daily standups and sprint reviews via Google Meet, Slack, Jira, and, occasionally, email. We create our user stories and review them, while Pragmatic Coders does the refinement. Story points are also well-defined so that we have the right priorities set as we go into sprint planning. We may be working remotely but our communication and collaboration make us feel like we’re one team. 

Pragmatic Coders has been excellent. We follow an effective agile methodology and the scrum master that we have is fantastic. The team does continual releases so that we don’t have to adhere to a strict monthly or bi-monthly release cycle. This is great in enabling us to be quick and responsive to our customers.

What did you find most impressive about them?

A real, tremendous value that Pragmatic Coders brings to the table is that when we submit a user story, they don’t just take it and start working on it, which I’ve seen happen with some organizations I’ve been with. Instead, they conduct a comprehensive internal review of the user story and come back with questions that push us to think of aspects that we didn’t even consider. 

If they had just moved forward and implemented the user story, we would’ve been in a real mess. They really challenge us so that we don’t miss any requirements or make assumptions in our user stories. 

It’s truly been a partnership. They have an in-depth understanding of our client base and what services we provide, anticipating evolving needs and addressing them by adding new features into our system. Their team also makes sure that there is a shared understanding so that what they deliver meets my organization and our clients’ expectations. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, before I joined, it was a bit bumpy because there wasn’t a scrum master. Both organizations were still determining the scope of what was required and trying to figure out the right model to use. However, this was very early on and quickly addressed. Once they put that structure in place, the project took off.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you clearly understand the expectations. Communicate your needs to Pragmatic Coders, out of the gate, or just take the time to have those conversations even when you’re unsure. They will try to understand what your needs are and will put the right team together for you to be successful.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a tech director for a restaurant solutions company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatic Coders?

We wanted to get up to speed with the development of our platform before we hired our own engineers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragmatic Coders handled the development of our platform for internal users. It’s a heavy and sophisticated platform based on cloud; it’s written in Java and React. Over time, we hired our own engineers and built mixed teams of our people and theirs. We continue to use their services. Right now, we’re using them purely for Java development.

What is the team composition?

We had 15 developers from their side working hand-in-hand with our product owners. Now there are about eight developers. In the beginning, they worked purely on their own and now it’s a mix. Looking at the technology side, we had 10–11 Java developers and four frontend developers.

How did you come to work with Pragmatic Coders?

We shortlisted a couple of companies out of 20 we reached out to in Poland. Our team decided to work with Pragmatic Coders because we liked their experience and host of clients. They wanted to know pretty much everything about the business domain. Their team was very interested in what we do and what we wanted to achieve.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $1 million–$1.5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2019, and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Pragmatic Coders pays attention to detail and understands the business domain correctly. They led us to a successful launch of our product this year. We’re happy with the effects of their work. Our team is still using the platform and building on top of it.

We got the feeling they’re not trying to attach us to them permanently. It’s clear they want to lock us with them. We’re already scaling them down, and they don’t have any issues with this. They’re happy to share their knowledge with our own employees. Everything has been spot-on so far.

How did Pragmatic Coders perform from a project management standpoint?

The project managers were on our side and were actively contributing. We worked hand-in-hand with them so we knew right away about any possible delays or new things that emerged.

They weren’t hiding anything from us. We treat them as part of our team. They pay attention to detail, and we communicate on a daily basis. In the beginning, we even went to their office for in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Before the developers started to build something, they asked a lot of good questions that helped us on the way to avoid pitfalls. They’re not only good at coding but they also help us improve on the business side.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we’re very happy with their performance.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Work with them as a partner and tell them everything. They can help you with your business as well as deliver the code for you.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m a technical product manager for a cryptocurrency exchange.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pragmatic Coders?

We were looking to create a demo API for a conference in just over 3-week’s time. The timescale was incredibly tight, and Pragmatic Coders did a fantastic job of rising to the challenge.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to demo the key features and functionalities of our solution to prospective clients at the conference, as well as having something to use internally as a POC.

How did you select this vendor?

I held calls with around 15 vendors and provided a briefing document about the project and deliverables. The call with Pragmatic Coders showed that their development and sales teams had clearly studied the document, as they came with questions and suggestions for the project. This showed their interest in the project, as well as their diligent nature.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They created an API to showcase our product's key features and functionalities. It involved a number of endpoints and a demo environment with a clean interface.

What was the team composition?

There was a senior developer, a regular developer, and a product owner. It was incredibly impressive what they were able to build in such a short time, as a team of three.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

We had a fully-functioning demo API to show at the conference and received high praise from those who saw it. As an internal tool, it also helped us ensure that everyone understood the goal we were working toward.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

As it was a short engagement, the project management was light; the product owner oversaw it, and they did all of it internally. We reached our tight deadline with a high-quality product.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

From the beginning of our engagement, they showed an interest in and understanding of the product. This brought peace of mind and ensured I didn't have to chase them or check-in. They're a team who can be briefed and then get on with it.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We only had a very short engagement with them, so it's difficult to say. Hopefully, we will be doing a longer build soon and then I can see.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is BLOC-X, and I’m the CEO. We’re a SaaS-based provider of trading software to the global energy industry.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatic Coders?

We were looking for a firm that had domain expertise in the building of trading systems.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragmatic Coders built both applications from scratch. One of the applications is a trading software system, and the other is a separate application that serves as an execution management tool for our regulatory partner. An independent firm did the UX/UI research and wireframing. Pragmatic Coders didn’t have internal design resources at the time, so they recommended a third-party vendor.  

We kicked off the project by providing Pragmatic Coders with an extensive backlog in Trello. Our discovery process lasted about 2–3 weeks. They built the backend in Java and the frontend in React. The entire system is hosted and managed on AWS, and we have separate environments for development, demos, and production.

What is the team composition?

We made the decision in January to split out parts of the project into two teams. We ramped up a second team at the Pragmatic office in Krakow so that we could run some of the development non-sequentially. That team was reassigned when that part of the build was done, and we’re now back to the core team in Warsaw.

There’s a product owner, a senior backend developer, a mid-level backend developer, a frontend developer, and a DevOps engineer. The product owner serves as our project manager on a part-time basis.

How did you come to work with Pragmatic Coders?

We looked at a number of different providers and eventually shortened our list to two vendors. We found Pragmatic Coders either through a recommendation or a project matchmaking service.

Although the other shop on our list was probably cheaper, we felt that Pragmatic was much more professional and had a reasonable understanding of trading concepts. They built a crypto-exchange either last year or the year before. We chose Pragmatic primarily because of their experience. We felt that this would save us time and money in the long run.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $400,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in late September 2018, and it’s an ongoing engagement.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The product is still in the beta stage, so we don’t have any concrete metrics to discuss. We’re currently about five weeks away from launch.

This may be due to our lack of knowledge, but we’ve certainly been surprised by the extent of their delivery. They’ve made great progress in a short amount of time.

How did Pragmatic Coders perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management has been excellent. After the discovery phase, Pragmatic moved fairly quickly into running everything using agile methodologies. The team tracks the project backlog in Trello and uses Jira to manage development tasks. They’ve been meticulous with their documentation and planning.

The only less than great experience that we’ve had so far came when we split the teams. There wasn’t always the best communication between the teams in Warsaw and Krakow. Also, the handover from the Krakow team to the Warsaw team wasn’t as good as it could have been. These things tend to happen when you have two separate groups trying to work together. Aside from this, the core team has been really phenomenal.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It’s very notable that they were able to kind of challenge our views on how we should build trading software. We’ve been surprised by this, because, although they had some experience with trading systems, they didn’t have experience in the specific field that we’re operating in.

Also, the relationship that exists between their product owner and their development team is extremely good. Pragmatic seems to have solid communication within their development team and their team as a whole. One of the biggest risk factors we’ve faced is a team that isn’t cohesive, because that will slow down a project considerably. Their work environment and communication are second to none.

Are there any areas they could improve?

My suggestion, which I’ve already made to Pragmatic, is to review their relationship with the third-party vendor that we used. They weren’t the strongest firm, at least based on the work that they provided to us.

Pragmatic also has a relatively narrow focus in terms of the types of solutions that it offers. For example, they didn’t do mobile development and didn’t have an internal UX/UI team.

We’re going to be transitioning away from Pragmatic in the coming months, because, unlike many other software shops, they don’t offer any kind of mechanism for transitioning into a permanent team. We’re hoping to find another partner on Clutch.

Pragmatic has a business model that I respect, but we’ve been forced to reset our project because of it. My strong suggestion to them is to think about being more flexible and to consider implementing a build-own-transfer model.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CEO of Photochain. We tap into new markets by redefining who content creators are and empowering them to monetize their work in a fair and efficient way. We use a blockchain-based business model that enables contributors to have full control over licensing and trading of their digital images.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pragmatic Coders?

We were building an Ethereum blockchain integration to support Photochain’s development.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted highly professional, up-to-date backend developers that understood blockchain technology.

How did you select this vendor?

I had a personal contact at Pragmatic Coders.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They contributed backend development to our beta version that focused on multiple technologies and environments including Java, Amazon Web Services (AWS), IT architecture, blockchain, Ethereum, and smart contracts.

What was the team composition?

We worked with three developers from Pragmatic Coders.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Pragmatic Coders solved our issues in a fast, customer-friendly, and practical way. The development they did for our beta version is making an important impact on our business development during our current fundraising phase.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They’re always available on short notice and they provide very effective project management, which I don’t often see in the IT space.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

There are only a few developers in the world that are capable of developing our integration properly, and Pragmatic Coders is one of them. With them, the customer is king.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

To be honest, I’d have trouble identifying problems with Pragmatic Coders.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the co-founder and director of Accentpharm Medical Translations LLC in Warsaw, Poland.  We are a team of language professionals from all over the world that specializes in medical translations. Most of our clients are based in the EU and the U.S. Because the consequences of errors may lead to possible health or life risks, we aim to provide professional human translations with the highest level of accuracy.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pragmatic Coders?

Our existing translation quality evaluation process was reliant on Excel spreadsheets and massive time requirements to keep files moving between linguists through different stages. Managing file versions and action responsibility was becoming difficult. 

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to move away from spreadsheets and automate the entire process. This included creating a workflow with email notifications designed to reduce the time, hassle, and errors of manual management.

How did you select this vendor?

This was our first experience hiring a software development team, so we needed a vendor who would lead us through the process and advise us on best practices. We studied the web portfolios of various local vendors, conducted meetings, and ultimately decided to proceed with Pragmatic Coders; from day one, their team showed the greatest interest and desire to understand our underlying needs.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They designed everything from unique usability features and the UI and UX layouts to the backend architecture and workflow scenarios. After analyzing my initial idea sketches, they offered and implemented suggestions very quickly. 

What was the team composition?

My single point of contact was thoroughly involved in the project, responded quickly, and was always available for meetings or discussions. An additional developer was added later on to help resolve minor issues.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Launching the app increased overall translation quality, and we can now track the translation indexes for each project and analyze translator and reviewer performance. The linguists are very happy with the new workflow, which elevates the communication between translators and reviewers to a more professional level and eliminates negative feelings. The app has also improved turnaround time by removing the burden of handling Excel files and allowing remote freelance linguists to participate in the process more freely.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We utilized Trello, Google Hangouts, and in-person meetings, and they met all deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I valued the communication process. They functioned much like internal team members who had known our business for years; their engagement eliminated miscommunications.  

Are there any areas where they can improve?

I was pleased with everything.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a startup that provides a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange platform. We plan to start operations in late 2018.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatic Coders?

I was looking for a software company that had experience with both blockchain and financial services.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pragmatic Coders has developed our platform almost in its entirety. Their work was based on my ideas.

The software integrates cryptocurrency and e-commerce marketplace functionalities, allowing users to buy and sell digital assets.

What is the team composition?

They assigned a team of resources with expertise in different technologies for my project. These include four back- and frontend developers, a Scrum master, and a designer. The Scrum master was in charge of managing sprints and goals.

I was initially in contact with their CEO, and I’ve continued to work closely with him. He is an active part of the development team and has supported me through every step, from the introduction of my idea to the actual technical deployment.

How did you come to work with Pragmatic Coders?

I found them online one-and-a-half years ago while looking for a software company with experience in blockchain technology, specifically Bitcoin. Pragmatic Coders was listed on a hub focused on financial technology (fintech) projects. They provided services for larger companies and startups. I liked their approach to doing business, so I contacted them. I visited their office in Krakow, Poland a few times before deciding to start a collaboration.

How much have you invested with them?

Their development cost has been approximately $70,000. The cost is for a four-month development period, with a staff of six people.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work with Pragmatic Coders actively began in January 2018. Prior to that, we had exchanged different proposals to define how the collaboration would work. We’re currently finishing the alpha version of the platform and plan to launch it in the following months.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We haven’t gathered any metrics yet. Pragmatic Coders has provided a great development environment since the beginning. I appreciated their approach to building upon my idea. The team became an active part of the brainstorming process, which not many companies actually do. I am grateful to them, and I’m looking forward to continuing the collaboration, both with the current project and other ones.

How did Pragmatic Coders perform from a project management standpoint?

They have an open work dynamic, which made collaborating with them nice. The developers are free to take their time and interact with their colleagues.

Pragmatic Coders is professional about timing and keeping track of the goals for each sprint. The team has committed to my idea and to the deployment of the platform. I’m very happy with the results I’ve seen so far, and I look forward to seeing how the platform will work in real life.

We use the Atlassian suite for project tracking. Apart from that, we communicate constantly through a Slack channel, where we discuss everything related to the development of the platform. I have visited their headquarters in Krakow.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m from a different part of the world, and I don’t have much in common with the Polish culture, but the entrepreneurial spirit exhibited by Pragmatic Coders is very attractive to me. They have done a good job of making me feel like a part of the team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As challenges have come and gone, we’ve sometimes needed help from people outside Pragmatic Coders. They could develop a more standardized method for incorporating new team members. Specifically, they should specify the full spectrum of tools and resources necessary to deploy a platform.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Pragmatic Coders is a great solution for both larger companies and startups. They do a great job of communicating their company philosophy, and working with them has been a wonderful experience. Anyone looking for software development should consider their team. They are growing fast, and can provide world-class services at a level few others can.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Webinterpret is in the e-commerce business. We help our customers to sell abroad. For example, you have an online store in the UK or you sell on eBay or Amazon and you would like to increase your sales. You contact us and we analyze your product inventory. We look for the products that have the potential to sell abroad and we translate them in foreign language, like from English to German, to French, to Italian, or to Spanish. Then we put your name on different platforms. We created the translation software. It also works for measurements.

I am the Product Director.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pragmatic Coders?

We were growing and needed to find some developers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the time, our company was in a rapid growing phase, so we increased our business size and increased our development. We couldn’t find enough developers to hire at that time. Pragmatic Coders was providing developers - six to ten at the time. They worked as a part of our team. They work with our people to expand our product. They were involved mostly in the development of connection with the Amazon platform. We needed to synchronize our data with Amazon. We use Python as our main technology. They use MySQL database and Mongo database.

How did you come to work with Pragmatic Coders?

We met one of the co-founders. They said they could help us. He did Agile training in our company and started talking to us. He thought they could provide what we needed.

How much have you invested with Pragmatic Coders?

We have 8 developers and per month it cost $4,000 per developer for two years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together two or three years ago. It’s ongoing.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They were just a part of the team. It might be difficult to share stats on the part they were working on.

How did Pragmatic Coders perform from a project management standpoint?

They work directly with our team. We’re happy with their work. The communication is good. Deliverables were OK. It wasn’t always 100% on time. They weren’t all to blame for that though.

What did you find most impressive about Pragmatic Coders?

They improved our tool for internal messaging. Because of that, we could reduce the number of servers by 20% because it improved a lot. I wasn’t involved in the daily operations. The owners and managers are good people. It’s nice to do business with them. They are flexible and smart. They have experience in software development and Agile. It’s a pleasure to work with them. I can’t comment on the developers.

Are there any areas Pragmatic Coders could improve?

It’s difficult to work with remote developers. They don’t fully understand our business. We work with them some but we try to keep it in-house. It’s not because they’re not good.

They were growing and hiring developers. Sometimes the people they provided us weren’t good enough. Those problems were solved. At the beginning the team wasn’t mature so the quality of each team member could vary. They’re good now, they're stable. We don’t see the problem anymore.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Cloud based SaaS Platform focused on Data Management. CTO

For what projects/services did your company hire Pragmatic Coders?

API & Infrastructure development

What were your goals for this project?

Agile, Reliable & Scalable Software Solution.

How did you select this vendor?

Recommended by another agency. Interviewed and was impressed by the Marcin(CTO) and expertise of the team with NodeJS and React.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Designed, Implemented & Launched Microservices based Platform to handle large volumes of Data.

What was the team composition?

One Team Lead/Architect with other Mid level developer for UI & API work.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

Were able to launch our MVP quickly and talk to multiple prospects.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Account Managers were quite supportive and often helped in team collaboration & Planning.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Technical expertise in NodeJS.

Are there any areas for improvement?

For infrastructure i would have preferred a guided technical setup instead of creating a custom one for our application.