Software Mind

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering at Vita Mojo International. We have a software platform for restaurants; we call it an OS because restaurants can use our solution to manage their business from end to end. They can take orders digitally or manually, deliver them, manage everything, and report sales. We’re a London-based startup and a series B company, so we’re moving outside the UK into Europe.

I handle the whole engineering department, including processes, teams, and recruitment. I’ve been in the company for six and a half years, so I’ve been involved since the beginning.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Software Mind?

Six years ago, we had an MVP version causing many issues. We had to rebuild our software from the ground up.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with Software Mind to build our software. We started with a team of four engineers, and now they employ 24 people for us. They handle the admin, HR, and recruitment sides, and their people work alongside us as one team. It’s not project-based delivery; it’s a collaboration.

Initially, we went to them with our basic product. They rebuilt it for us, and then we kept expanding, transforming, and modernizing it to what it is today. We went from a software solution that worked for one restaurant to a platform that now serves thousands of restaurants simultaneously across different countries. It has more modules and is a much more complex software project.

When we expand and hire more people, Software Mind has two ways of going about it. First, they see if internal resources are available and propose the candidates to us. If they don’t have enough people to put on a project, we need to do some recruitment. The HR team advertises the positions in multiple countries, mainly in Eastern Europe. They do recruitment interviews, and then we do technical interviews to select the candidates and ensure there are no red flags.

Additionally, they do training. This year, we had an internship program that they helped us run. Software Mind got three recent graduates and had a two-month software training program. They brought them into our project so they could learn with a hands-on approach, and now they’ve hired the three candidates. On the other hand, they have a learning and development budget for their employees, which they can use for different trainings. For example, most of our people have access to language or English lessons. Most of them don’t need it, but they’re still there if people want to develop their language skills.

What is the team composition?

We have a main point of contact with one of the seniors; he oversees the project. However, most of the people in the team are developers, including an engineering manager and a delivery manager. Additionally, we’ve worked with QA people, but not anymore.

How did you come to work with Software Mind?

One of our founders got in touch with the managing director. We had a small contest between them and other providers. Software Mind showed us samples from other projects, and we chose to work with them due to their pitch and costs.

How much have you invested with them?

Over six years, we’ve spent close to £2.5 million (approximately $2.8 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2016, and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We look at how fast we can get people in when we need them, how long we keep them employed, the quality of people they bring forward, and so on. Since we’ve built our software team with them, it’s been an enormous success. The growth hasn’t been abrupt — we’ve added people along the way but still have three people from the initial team. All in all, we haven’t had any major issues. Occasionally, we get someone who doesn’t fit in, so we have to let them go after their probation period. However, that’s generalized across our business; it isn’t specific to Software Mind’s support.

How did Software Mind perform from a project management standpoint?

We treat them as part of our organization. We do annual performance reviews as a joint effort. First, they provide reports with feedback after the three-month probation period. Then, we do the annual review with everyone. Software Mind does their internal evaluations, and then we help with more information. We build the report on the team members’ levels and where they can improve.

We don’t have a middle layer of communication, so our engineering managers, the product team, and the people working from England have direct access to the engineers and developers in our team. From that perspective, everything is very agile and swift. They’re very responsive and available, and we collaborate through Slack and emails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we have issues, we can talk directly to them. They’ve been along the journey, always supporting us in our endeavors. Also, the management team is excellent. They’re open, supportive, and communicative — it’s a very transparent relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their recruitment process for different countries is a bit fragmented. For example, it’s more challenging to recruit people in Poland because the recruitment team has many hoops to go through. It’s not a major issue, but they’re working on it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest and transparent. If you can be hands-on with the team, you’ll get the most out of them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CIO of a mortgage network. We provide technology, sales and marketing services to our network and are responsible for regulatory compliance of businesses operating within the network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Software Mind, and what were your goals?

We are developing a new line-of-business platform that will support all elements of the business lifecycle for customers, advisers and introducers. We were struggling to find sufficient numbers of suitably skilled and experienced developers in the UK and I wanted to outsource some development to an organisation that would fit into my broader development team.

SOLUTION

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

We ran an comprehensive outsource procurement that included market analysis, RfP, interviews and reference calls. Software Mind were not the cheapest but their proposal was the best and the capability of their team shone through.

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

The Software Mind team have provided dev, QA and Scrum Master resource, operating as a single team, to deliver a number of elements of the solution. They typically work from

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

There were 6 people in the team. 3 developers, 2QAs and a scrum master

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The solutions that the Software Mind team worked on were estimated professionally, delivered to broadly to time and to a high quality. The business users have been very happy with the results

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

Project management has been good but the team is under the direction of my staff in the UK.

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

Quality of resource - the developers and QAs are of a very high standard and are very open to new ideas. They ask lots of questions which I really like.

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

They don't need to improve on anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CPO of GemOne. We deliver Telematics solution to deliver insights about fleets of off-highway industrial equipment by connecting them to the cloud.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Software Mind?

We hired multiple SoftwareMind teams to build and grow our GemOne IoT Cloud Platform. Apart from augmenting staff, we received lots of advice about IoT & Cloud development best practices.

SOLUTION

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

The ability to deliver qualitative cloud software at scale is what attracts us at SoftwareMind.

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

Together with SoftwareMind, we're building IoT solutions which provide actionable insights and opertational data streams about their fleet of industrial equipment.

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

We have been able to scale up and down high-performing teams at SoftwareMind, in accordance with investment budgets. This type of 'flexible workforce' is extremely valuable while scaling our SaaS offering.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have been building out a telematics platform connecting thousands of machines already and we are preparing the foundations to support connecting millions in a performant and secure way.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The agile way of working at SoftwareMind made it a smooth integration in the way of working with the GemOne teams and other vendors, collaborating on the same products.

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

Their professionalism working in a complex environment with cutting-edge technologies is top-notch!

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

SoftwareMind could claim a more business-driving position from the start of the project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project leader at Beck Technology, a construction technology company focusing on pre-construction.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtualmind?

We were looking for a company that could help us scale our development team in order to move forward with the development of our web product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Virtualmind to help us look for talent in Latin America because we wanted to find people in a similar timezone as us so that they could join all of our meetings and be part of our normal workday. They’re primarily in charge of staffing our department, but they’ve also recently helped us scale another development team and our QA department as well. Virtualmind provides their own training for the team members that they hire for us.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Javier (CEO), Fernando (COO), and Leandro (Lead Technical Recruiter).

How did you come to work with Virtualmind?

We found Virtualmind through online research. We actually interviewed a few other firms as well, but we felt that Virtualmind best fits our culture, so we went with them for this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $200,000 in total so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are still in active development of our website, so we haven't delivered on anything yet that we can have metrics on. But I could definitely say that we have a solid team that has everything we could ever want from a development team. The team members are all collaborative and quick to raise concerns about any potential issues that they’re having. I really appreciate how they’re not hesitant to speak up or bring up something that could impact the team or the project.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with the people that we have on board and that are part of my development team.

How did Virtualmind perform from a project management standpoint?

Virtualmind has performed really well in terms of project management. They are all fully integrated with my development team, and they have a lot of engagement on their side. We meet every month to discuss how the team is doing, how we’re feeling about the partnership, and if there’s any way that they can support us.

We primarily communicate through Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Virtualmind’s culture and core values align well with ours — we feel that they really care about the people that are on their team. They didn’t try to sell us a product or anything and just focused on how it’s also important for them that they have a good relationship with their employees because that’s how they keep them long term.

Ultimately, the people that have joined my team from the beginning are still here and are still highly engaged. I think this shows the value of good communication on our side, combined with the good environment created by Virtualmind for the people that they hire.

Another thing that I appreciate is their receptiveness to feedback. Because of this, they're able to tailor the services that they provide and help us frame the culture that we have here to help sell our company. Through the feedback that we give them on our interviews, they're able to tweak the candidate pool and the type of people that they bring to us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We haven't had any concerns with Virtualmind or how our team has interacted with them. We have a recurring discussion with them, and we're on track to continue this partnership for the long term.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you tell Virtualmind what you're looking for, they will tailor their services to your needs. So it's just a matter of setting those expectations and having good communication with them. But otherwise, they're great to work with, and they also help keep the collaboration and communication between our companies going.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

SVP of Engineering

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtualmind?

We were having a hard time looking for good engineers, so we sought to find different development firms for staff augmentation services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

As of this review, Virtualmind continues to provide the company with senior Java backend developers and senior React frontend developers.

The project starts with a discussion of the job description, which will be sent to their team to start the candidate screening process. Once that’s finished, we go to the onboarding process, which we collaborate closely on.

What is the team composition?

9 software engineers - both Java and React.

How did you come to work with Virtualmind?

Virtualmind was a referral from a fairly trusted colleague who they’d worked with in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe the company has spent north of $500,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in November 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There were two projects that VirtualMind was a part of. Both were strategic to the company and both were on track

How did Virtualmind perform from a project management standpoint?

Virtualmind did a phenomenal job of integrating their team into our company.

They utilized JIRA as their primary management tool and we typically communicated through Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by the quality of the candidates that they were able to provide for our company. They quickly assimilated into our environment and culture and were quite active during sprint demos and meetings.

What I also liked about them is their level of personal service. They’re not a large company, so it was very easy for me to access their CEO and as a result, we were able to have a personal and collaborative partnership.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t really think of any negatives from my experience working with Virtualmind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise you to have clear expectations for your candidates and be very upfront with your requirements.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the VP, Technology for a consulting firm. We build custom software and applications for the industry and leverage nearshore and offshore teams to help with development projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired them to provide senior-level software developers to work within our teams on custom software development projects. They also worked directly with our clients in scrum teams.

SOLUTION

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

They were referred to us by one of our clients. The skill level, communication proficiency (English) and level of vetting and recruiting support were key factors in deciding to work with VirtualMind.

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

Our primary tech stack is Java and Spring Boot so that is where the team was focused. Some of the team branched out into nodejs and react work as well. The team was working on a greenfield application build but also supporting other work on refactoring a monolithic application into a microservice-based application.

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

There were 2 people on one scrum team, 2 on another and 3 on another team over a 6 month period. One of the projects slowed down a bit so there are now 4 people on 2 separate teams.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The team was embedded with our team and contributed to deliverables based on sprint goals. The submitted work was of high quality and the team was always responsive to feedback and communication within the larger project team.

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

The team was presented on a staff aug basis so they were embedded into our project teams. However the VirtualMind executive team was always available for feedback and discussion on any potential team issues.

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

The communication and approach to working with the team. They were constantly in touch with our teams to be proactive about any potential team issues. The onboarding and interview process was also strong with a good level of vetting of candidates that were presented to us.

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

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Founder and CEO of a SaaS software company that builds management and accounting software for member-based organizations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Virtualmind?

We needed to grow our development team quickly with experienced engineers who could hit the ground running.

SOLUTION

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

I was referred to VirtualMind by an existing client who was very happy with their work. It has turned out to be a great decision.

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

VirtualMind provided two senior software engineers with experience in Node.js, MongoDB, and React.js. One engineer immediately began working on our accounting product, completing features that were already in progress. This required very rapid learning on her part and she did an exceptional job getting up to speed and contributing quickly.

Describe the recruitment process in detail.

VirtualMind assigned a recruiter to us at the beginning of our engagement. He met with us to discuss our needs and the required background of the engineers we were looking for. Very quickly, they began presenting candidates.

All of the candidates were qualified for our positions. We interviewed the candidates that looked most promising to verify their technical background, communication skills, and fit with our culture. Then we selected the very best candidates from the options presented by VirtualMind.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Overall we have been very happy with our experience working with VirtualMind. One of the engineers we added to our team became a key contributor very quickly. We were very impressed with her ability to learn our product and made valuable contributions quickly.

The second engineer did not work out as well but VirtualMind dealt with the issue quickly and professionally. While technically competent, the second engineer was not able to contribute at the level we required. After some coaching and feedback to both the engineer and VirtualMind, we decided to replace the engineers. VirtualMind quickly found another capable engineer and made the switch smooth and seamless for us.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our communication with VirtualMind is very good. We have invited their key people to our Slack system so we can regularly message them with any questions or issues that arise. They are very responsive and very profesional.

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

The thing that most impressed us about VirtualMind was the personal attention that we received. Other staff augmentation firms felt like factories where we would be a small client and receive little attention. But VirtualMind really listened to our needs and found us the engineers we needed quickly and efficiently.

Their team is friendly, professional, and easy to work with. I also like having a direct line of communication to the owners of the firm in case I have an issue that needs attention.

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

Nothing I can think of. Just keep doing great work!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of DanceFight, a mobile competition platform that allows our community members to challenge each other to a dance-off and the crowd to vote for their favorite.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Virtualmind?

We needed to hire affordable development resources quickly. As we were a startup, we didn’t have the time to get internal resources on board, and we were concerned about the cost and time that this would imply, so we decided to hire Virtualmind instead.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an internal iOS development team, but Virtualmind provides us with a full-time Swift developer to augment it. This resource has been on board for almost two years now.

More recently, they also provided us with a half-time QA developer, who has been working with us for the last twelve months. This person mostly provides QA for iOS, but they also help us with QA for Android. Over the last month, this person has become a full-time resource, at least temporarily.

We’ve also talked with Virtualmind about onboarding a resource for Android development, but we haven’t gotten to that road yet. Additionally, I know that they offer web design and development, but we don’t need those services for now.

What is the team composition?

We work with two people from Virtualmind: the iOS developer and the QA developer. We’ve also communicated with Javier (CEO) and Fernando (COO).

How did you come to work with Virtualmind?

A friend of mine had used them before and recommended them to us. Although they’re based in Argentina, I met them in person here in Austin and had a really good first impression of them. They were very friendly, transparent, and willing to find the right fit for us, and I felt that they would go above and beyond. Additionally, they were more affordable than someone local, so we decided to go with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a little over $200,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2019, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any specific metrics to track Virtualmind resources’ performance, but the quality of their work has been very good. Our app has an average of 4.7–4.8 stars on the App Store, as well as some positive reviews, so our community seems to like what we’re doing. Overall, we’ve been growing, improving our engagement and retention, and Virtualmind has played an important role in that success.

We’re very happy with them, which is why the relationship has gone longer than anticipated. Initially, we thought that we would augment our team for six months and then hire someone internally, but they’ve been such a good fit for us that we’ve continued working together.

How did Virtualmind perform from a project management standpoint?

Our CTO manages the whole development team, but Virtualmind resources are very timely. As we’re a newer organization, we’re always improving our processes and increasing our development speed.

We use Instabug and Crashlytics to track bugs and Jira to assign tickets to Virtualmind’s resources automatically. We also find bugs during our QA process and prioritize them before fixing them. Additionally, we use Figma to share UI/UX designs and Slack to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Virtualmind’s desire to understand our business and do everything they can to help us succeed is impressive. I’ve worked with other agencies in the past, and it felt like we were just another client. However, working with Virtualmind feels like a true relationship. Javier and Fernando really want us to succeed, so they put time and effort into finding the right people for our project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take the time to talk to Javier or Fernando and dive into your needs and requirements. Taking time to do so upfront really helped us a lot in getting the right people on board.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CTO of a software company. We built SaaS products for financial management, and I worked in product development and operations. We had 300 people in the company, and then we utilized external resources for product development, so I also managed them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Software Mind?

We were developing our own software product. We needed someone to scale up and resource our product development. Mainly, we were after scalability and expertise.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Software Mind acted as a subcontractor for us. They provided a pool of SCRUM resources, and we basically hired them on a full-time basis. Their team worked with our product development unit, which consisted of in-house and external resources work. Software Mind produced 80% of that external resourcing.

We started with a pilot on a small scale and ramped up from there. Initially, we provided some basic documentation, but they gathered the experience and knowledge they needed throughout our collaboration. We mostly used JavaScript, but we ran a bunch of other languages as well. We used MySQL on the database side, Vaadin on the frontend, Spring Boot, and Cassandra for the message queue.

In summary, they produced quite a lot of things. Their team did the document management part and most of the public API provided to our customers. Also, they made critical changes to the core of our product and worked on UI design as well.

What is the team composition?

We had a main point of contact and 35 people working on 6–7 SCRUM things. Some were software architects, and we had a few software engineers, 5–6 QA engineers, SCRUM masters, and 1–2 designers.

How did you come to work with Software Mind?

I spent a while researching the options and went through about 50 companies. I came across Software Mind through someone I knew beforehand. He had more experience in this type of operation, so he suggested some good companies.

How much have you invested with them?

It was roughly €5 million (approximately $5.8 million USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016, and I left in May 2021. The company is still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The final evidence was the company’s business growth. During those years, our revenue increased by 30% annually. Moreover, Software Mind produced good quality work. When we compared their quality, it was on par with what we did in-house. We were very happy about that.

How did Software Mind perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered what they’d promised. We didn’t do much project management together. They were under our management style, and they did well. We mainly worked remotely, but our teams also visited each other. Every month, someone from our office would go there, and then they’d visit us a few times a year. On the other hand, it was pretty different during 2020 due to the lockdown.

We used Slack, Microsoft Teams, emails, and phone calls to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, they stood out for their ability to deliver technology. From a cooperation standpoint, they were direct, honest, and easy to work with. Software Mind said what they thought and actually told us when we asked things that didn’t make sense.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At some points, we saw people leaving. Also, there were occasions where we could’ve prevented changes if we’d acted sooner, so maybe they could be more proactive on that front.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Getting the home base in order first helps a lot. Then, you have to approach them and be willing to hand them business-critical tasks and complex challenges. That’s when they prove they’re valuable.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Burning Glass is a labor market analytics firm providing quantitative insight into the demand and supply of workers in labor markets around the world. I am the Chief Technology Officer of Burning Glass.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We required data engineering personnel quickly to develop high throughput data processing pipelines and insights underpinning new applications under construction.

SOLUTION

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

The vendor quickly provided numerous qualified candidates to work with our team in a cohesive team structure. Deciding factors for us included quickly presenting multiple potential resources with excellent language skills at a per month costs fitting within our budget.

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

Key deliverables included bringing on a team quickly, Python and database engineering, data modelling, plus analysis of data quality.

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

We hired 3 software engineers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The new application launched on time within a 3 month window and sold three new customers within 30 days of launch. Key deliverables included Python and AWS Cloud Formation Template (CFT) software comprising the system's backend.

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

VirtualMind served as a management resource providing personnel to our team, but their model focused on embedding their personnel within our existing scrum teams in a cohesive manner.

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

The speed in which they provided highly skilled resources sourced from South America that could cohesively work with my global software team.

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

No