Soft Zen

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CSO and co-founder of our company. We are building custom software solutions for manufacturing companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soft Zen?

For one of our projects we need to find and build a dedicated team of 7 Senior React Developers, and that is why we get in touch with Soft Zen.

SOLUTION

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

One of our mutual friends recommended them, and we decided to have an interviews with their team members.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We were build human resources management platform for one of the biggest manufacturing in DACH region. At one stage we didn't have enough developers to fulfill their requirements and to build the full functionalities.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

After getting in touch with Soft Zen. We had a meeting with their CEO and CTO, and in a week their provide us the CV's of 10 developers. All of them had an interview with our CTO, who selected 7 of those candidates.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

With their help we manage to deliver the first stage of the project and now we are working on the second stage.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Even though their developers work remotely, they are now part of our family and bond with our internal team. Currently we are expanding this team and taking more people from Soft Zen.

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

They expertise, knowledge and the way how they integrate in our internal environment.

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

No. everything is amazing.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of business development at Motion Software, a fully remote company specializing in software development and consulting. We focus on outsourcing and outstaffing. I handle partnerships with many companies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Soft Zen?

We needed consulting and staff augmentation services for some projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we have a project where we have to react quickly, we engage Soft Zen. Most of the time, we don’t even have to do an HR interview; they send someone that fulfills all the requirements. The end client meets the candidates, does the technical interview, and manages the trial periods. Ultimately, the end client works with their teammates remotely.

How did you come to work with Soft Zen?

I was sourcing Ruby on Rails developers for a project and met their CEO online. They responded to one of our recruitment posts.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about 1 million Bulgarian Leva (approximately $555,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve been our partner since January 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The integration into a team depends on both sides, but Soft Zen’s teammates have integrated well into our projects. Sometimes it doesn’t work out for the best, but so far, it’s been great. Soft Zen knows how to prescreen people before they come our way so the project can be successful long term. Otherwise, we could lose the chain quickly and waste our time and resources.

How did Soft Zen perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate with them via email, WhatsApp, and phone calls. When something’s urgent, we just pick up the phone and call them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We trust Soft Zen because they’ve been successful. They know well what they’re doing because we’re in similar areas. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only problem we’ve had is that the developers on the projects have to fill time sheets and information in several systems: the end clients’, ours, and Soft Zen’s. Developers get annoyed and forget to track their time, creating problems. However, we’ve handled those issues.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Give them as much information as possible. The more they know, the better services they can provide.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a small Software Development company. We build two sided marketplace platforms for any business stage and scenario.From B2C, Services or B2B marketplace to collaborative marketplaces and community platforms – we have the expertise and will build the technology for your business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soft Zen?

We needed to extend our team of Vue.js and React developers so we can accelerate our work on several ongoing project and in parallel develop our own Services Marketplace platform.

SOLUTION

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

We already had an internal team and we needed to do a fast and flexible scale. In some previous projects we had a very positive experience with Soft-zen and in particular with their CEO who was very responsive and quickly understood our need.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They provided us at first with two skilled Vue.js/React developers who integrated a team working for putting on place a POC of a very challenging Community Marketplace for one of our main customers. We already had the main functionalities on the back-end but we needed to reinforce our team finishing the front-end part and be able to have better time to market for our client. As the project went live with a huge interest we had other needs requiring UX Designer and other software engineers.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

The recruitment process was very fast as we received pre-vetted candidates with the needed knowledge and skills.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

With the help of our partner we were able to release a very stable production version for one of our biggest projects.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The engineers from Soft-zen were remote as it's all our team. The flow and the communication was great.

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

They quickly understood our needs. They were very effective in the recruitment process and most of al very responsive and reactive about everything. The quality of their engineers is great, and they adapted very quickly to our process.

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

Not at this point.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the content marketing manager of Passion4Growth. Business development and growth hacking agency.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soft Zen, and what were your goals?

As a business development and growth hacking agency, we are using many external tools, costing us a lot of money. That is why we have decided to create an internal outreach system that we will use for all of our customers.

SOLUTION

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

We got around 9 offers and selected the Soft Zen offer based on their company ideas and feedback about our initial project.

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

Everything started with a kickoff meeting and research from their side. After the meeting, they advised us on which part of our system to start, as the system itself is very complex and uses LinkedIn, email, SMS, phone, and Viber.

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

There are 1 project manager, 1UX/UI designer, and 5 developers - 1 frontend and 4 backends.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After launching the first part of our system, we moved all of our existing customers to it and started proposing this system to external clients.

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

Everything is going perfectly. We have a project-updated meeting every two weeks, and we communicate through slack daily.

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

The best part is that they are helping us to have a better product than we have imagined. Their tech expertise and explaining every detail in an easy-to-understand way.

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

Their quality is fantastic. I can't add anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO and founder of mid-sized IT Services company located in Bulgaria and operating primarily in Wester Europe market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Soft Zen?

We are using Soft Zen as our key partner in staff augmentation services primarily in the React technologies. Their consultants worked and are working on various projects of our company.

SOLUTION

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

They were fast, and their talents were on a very good level and at a reasonable cost.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Soft Zen played part in number of projects in our company: - developing gis systems for one our clients - augmented our team for developing a strategic product in image signing - augmented our team in an accounting software

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

Based on provided from outside needs we receive shortlisted candidates which we validate internally. Overall the provided profiles are well preselected.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

Soft Zen were fast and helped us winning clients. Most of the projects we keep the delivery but their work is good.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their team is fully integrated in our teams even playing key roles.

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

Fast response of good talent

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

Overall we are happy. They could make some improvement on the the delivery and onboarding processes when is possible and required.