Singula team

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a CEO and business owner of a real estate and legal consulting company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Singula team, and what were your goals?

We have a large holding engaged in the investment and construction of luxury real estate in the EU (Spain, France, Czech Republic, and Croatia). We hired Singula to develop a search engine for a luxury real estate aggregator. The main requirements were: ease of use, ease of support and development, as well as reliability and scalability.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We found them through a referral and considered them along with five other vendors. Because the project was such a high priority, we needed a results-driven partner that was committed to providing a reliable solution.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They based the development on microservice architecture and containerization. Service isolation in containers was implemented using Kubernetes. The presence of independent services made it possible to use various technologies and programming languages ​​for their implementation, as well as to isolate service development cycles, expanding development opportunities.

When developing the web service, they used the Ruby on Rails framework, and third-party Go lang developers were involved in the development of high-load parts (API, crawlers). The database is PostgreSQL. They also used Elasticsearch for storing indexes of search queries.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were seven people in the core team, including:

• a project manager
• Ruby developers
• DevOps specialist

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The architecture of the designed system has a common entry point (API Gateway), which can be physically duplicated to increase reliability. Some of the services are closed from the public Internet by a specially configured service on a local subdomain that acts as a request balancer.

We control the availability of the service through centralized monitoring using the "heartbeat" approach, in which each service periodically sends information about itself to the monitoring service, reporting basic information and metrics. Overall, their team performed so well that we decided to continue working with them to maintain the solution.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project management and implementation was great, especially compared to other vendors we've worked with. We interacted via Slack, Jira, GitHub.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They provide developers with great expertise, so we didn't have to search for solutions ourselves.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder of a company that provides IT services and develops digital solutions for various projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Singula team, and what were your goals?

Singula team worked together with our team on the digitalization of the pharmaceutical company processes; and updating part of the functionality to a modern technology stack. The system is basically a back office (ERP/CRM) for working with customers, suppliers, and internal processes such as HR management, and production control.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We searched online for web development teams and shortlisted several companies that were suitable for our needs. After interviewing the Singula team members, we chose them based on their portfolio and competence.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a kick-off meeting to discuss our mutual goals and objectives and think about the solutions that could be realized. The system is a monolith written in Ruby on Rails, which was rewritten to a microservice architecture. The reason for the rewrite is the expansion of automation not only of the company's internal processes but also of the production process, quality control, and analytics. So they divided it into several modules, leaving the main modules on the company's workflows in the Rails part.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A project manager, and several Ruby on Rails developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The main part of the system has been upgraded from a monolith on RubyOnRails to a modular system, where the frontend part is developed separately on Javascript React, and the backend remains on Ruby but now looks like an API-only backend. Frontend and backend interaction is now performed using standardized specifications based on OpenAPI v3.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had weekly meetings with the team and sometimes daily standups with the project manager. We used Slack, Jira, Github.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The solutions they proposed and developed were great, and they were true professionals. We are happy with the results.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of (a/an) Financial services

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are building a tool that helps increase employee engagement and workplace productivity by implementing a leaderboard approach that is fused with gamification.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Singula team to accomplish?

• The solution must be Cloud SAAS, web-based
• Possibility of customizing the solution
• Ability to integrate with internal systems (Genesys, PowerBI, LiveTex, Ispring)

SOLUTION

How did you find Singula team?

Online Search, Referral

Why did you select Singula team over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing first our budget
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

What was the size of Singula team’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

The project was developed using Ruby programming language and the RubyOnRails framework, with Postgresql serving as the database. To meet the requirements of ensuring compatibility with both classic browsers and mobile devices, as well as to streamline development time, the team opted for a Mobile First approach, beginning with the design of the mobile product before moving on to desktop.

In addition, the team chose to implement the project through a Progressive Web App (PWA) rather than a separate mobile application in order to reduce development time for the initial release. The frontend for the PWA was built using VueJS and specialized libraries, while the backend took the form of an API-only component in Ruby (RubyOnRails).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• An increase in user engagement
• Performance metrics are great
• Functionality works as planned

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes, we liked their thorough planning, transparent communication, and diligent risk management. They delivered the result on time.

What was your primary form of communication with Singula team?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email
• Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their team of experienced developers provides innovative solutions and stays up-to-date with the latest technologies. Also, they are responsive, transparent and communicate effectively.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Singula team could have done differently?

I wouldn't say so.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a Team Lead at the development services & consulting firm. We help enterprise-level clients in the tech space.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Singula team, and what were your goals?

We were a part of the development team for the metal factory and needed to hire professional DevOps specialists to build the project infrastructure.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We were choosing among several vendors. We needed a results-driven partner, and they satisfied our needs.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The entire project ecosystem runs in a managed cloud Kubernetes. They suggested useful solutions and eventually the use of cloud infrastructure helped us to delegate the maintenance of the central part of the infrastructure to the cloud provider, and Kubernetes gave us vendor independence and standardization of deployment processes and setting up the environment and dependent services.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

PM, 2 DevOps engineers, 1 Solution Architect.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Their DevOps engineers were very helpful. The flexibility provided by cloud Kubernetes allowed us to automatically rent resources for analytics & big data processing for a period of time without overpaying for the downtime of expensive equipment.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We had regular calls to discuss the work progress and have been communicating in a Slack workspace.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

It's not so easy to find great DevOps specialists in the market, and they were the ones that really impressed us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None that I could think of.