SoftState Technologies

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Product Design of Linus Health

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The Linus Health mission is to help bring brain health into its rightful place in the global standard of care and make it accessible to everyone.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire SoftState Technologies to accomplish?

• Implement new features across platforms and multiple markets (SaaS)
• Assist in implementing a library of engaging, efficient, fault tolerant, and anywhere assessments [Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) as well as Questionnaires]
• Help to build systems in compliance with security standards and regulations

SOLUTION

How did you find SoftState Technologies?

Referral

Why did you select SoftState Technologies over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from SoftState Technologies were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) Software as a Service (SaaS); Many new features to support adoption of our tools and reduce churn.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Increased Velocity, Reduced wasted development time, Quality and Performance, Continuous Improvement, Improve engineering on-time delivery, Improve adoption rate and reduce churn.

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

SoftState consistently surpasses expectations by consistently delivering on time. They proactively identify edge cases and gaps before releases, minimizing the occurrence of bugs in user acceptance testing (UAT) or live production environments. They demonstrate exceptional collaboration, actively engaging with various teams to contribute to the successful delivery of impactful features across platforms and markets.

What was your primary form of communication with SoftState Technologies?

Virtual Meeting

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

SoftState exhibits remarkable leadership, efficiency, and collaboration skills. We consider SoftState an integral part of our Linus family, rather than viewing them simply as contractors.

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

None.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Huckleberry supports parents in their parenting journey, starting with sleep. I am CTO at Huckleberry Labs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftState Technologies, and what were your goals?

We are currently developing a new app to address new customer needs. Since this is an MVP, we needed a development team who can work closely with us even as specs are being defined in an agile process. We also wanted to make sure that the foundations of the app are solid.

SOLUTION

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

I had worked with the founder of the company in the past and had excellent experience so I pretty much begged them to help us with this project and they accepted! You will be lucky if they are willing to work on your project. They are that good.

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

We initially provided them a high level project description with wireframes to review, along with technical specifications. After reviewing, they provided confidence that this is something that they can work on and deliver on. They also provided feedback on the tech stack that helped us refine it even further. After we committed to work on the project, our PM's prepared stories for each ticket which we refined together. The work is taken off the backlog and done in 2 week sprints.

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

We have 2 resources working with us. One is a principal and another one is a senior developer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Product development is still ongoing but a beta of the app is now ready and internal stakeholders are satisfied with the results.

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

Softstate project managers and owners are highly committed to the quality of their work. They will only commit to something that they can do and excel in. Second grade work is not accepted to them. They are fluent in speaking and writing english and are able to conduct a healthy conversation in english with us on calls.

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

All of their devs are hand vetted and of high quality. You can expect top quality work from them.

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

I wish they can improve their hiring pipeline and bring more developers on. I wouldn't want to compromise on quality though. I believe this is what's holding the company back from growing faster.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a software development manager at a health-tech startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftState Technologies, and what were your goals?

We brought SoftState on to help design and build out a new mobile application that initially was based on earlier prototypes and technologies that were not scalable. The goal was to build a platform that would be nimble and functional to our immediate customers while at small scope, but would allow us to scale into something significantly more complex over time. We needed a team that could not only build these applications for us, but identify and educate us on the right modern technologies and languages that would ensure our long-term success.

SOLUTION

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

Their reputation and past performance made them the clear choice amongst the firms that we considered. Speaking with Alex, it’s clear that his team was not just interested in billing hours - they cared about our product, mission, and team as much as we do ourselves.

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

They architected an application primarily with React Native, but with components that are in native Swift/Java. Let me be clear, when you think React Native, you might think simple ecommerce apps - the scale and complexity of what they have developed for us is far beyond such a simple application. They have been (and continue to be) active in the entire software development lifecycle, from early planning, to prototyping, coding, testing, release, and post-release support. They participate in many of our regular meetings across teams and departments, and are a key source of information and planning in our day-to-day operations. They are heavily integrated with our staff, and spend a great deal of effort training and supporting our developers, even when that means there might be less work for them as a result.

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

We started with just two developers who helped to architect the application. As my company grew and expanded, SoftState has been able to help us rapidly scale and have filled in the knowledge and skill gaps that have risen as a result of our explosive growth. About a dozen SoftState team members now work with us on a daily basis in a variety of software development and project management roles.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The rapid growth of our company is due in no small part to the success of the products they have built for us. We have a robust, scalable, and highly maintainable codebase that has allowed us to serve a greater number of customers than we thought possible at this stage in our product roadmap. As SoftState has helped advise us on software development best practices, the quality and stability of our codebase has only increased.

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

I had initially believed that there would be a significant barrier between our teams, simply due to the time zone differences between us. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only do they make heavy use of our planning tools like Jira and Slack, but they are consistently responsive at all hours of the day. When we have requested changes in workflow or process, they have always been more than willing to adapt and also to suggest improvements. When our requirements have had changes at the 11th hour, SoftState has consistently stepped up to make sure we’re able to deliver on time, every time.

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

I have worked with a number of different Eastern European contracting firms over my career. What genuinely stood out to me was their leader’s desire to train up their staff and provide long term support and career growth beyond the immediate short term. They have a healthy, strong team that has worked more closely with us than I thought possible.

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

Over time there certainly have been areas of process that could be improved, but whenever I have brought things up, Alex has taken them to heart and made sure his team continues to grow stronger.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP of Engineering

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Web app and middleware for data modeling that supports business intelligence and advanced analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire SoftState Technologies to accomplish?

• Support with web app redesign and reimplementation.

SOLUTION

How did you find SoftState Technologies?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select SoftState Technologies over others?

• Good value for cost
• good developers

How many teammates from SoftState Technologies were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

The contractor is working as an embedded resource that works side by side with out development teams similar to staff augmentation. There are many deliverables all of which entail your general SDLC expectations such as design, implementation, testing, pull requests, code review, agile meetings, etc.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Again, the team worked side by side with our team. Goals and deliverables were shared. We scrummed together. We could look at burn down charts, pull requests, delivered code. Progress was against implementing requirements from product and ultimately support a new software release with a complete redesign and reimplimentation of our web application. So outcomes are whether epics are completed or not, whether pull requests are approved, whether releases ship on time.

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

Yes. The were integrated with our scrum processes. The also attended ad hoc meetings for design and other needs.

What was your primary form of communication with SoftState Technologies?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They are competent, responsive, and efficient.

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

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the financiar manager of a Marketing Agency

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire SoftState Technologies, and what were your goals?

We needed React and React Native skills for one of our Agency clients and I did the selection of the company

SOLUTION

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

Time of response Proof of their skills Projects similar with our clients project

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

They used React and React Native in order to develop the web app and mobile app for our client. The project is still in progress but from how they started it, we just feel we made the right choice for our client.

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

3 - The project manager and 2 developers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

First of all we have a very clean UX design of the app. When we saw the design, it was clear they understood in detail the brief and they developed everything accordingly.

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

Very transparent communication and fast implementation

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

They are young and smart... and we love that!

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

For us... at this moment, no