Software Mind

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CTO in the biggest MVNO in Poland

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

We were looking for partner that could support us in both development of our BSS (new products, APIs and CRM development) and support of whole BSS related software stack.

How did you select Software Mind and what were the deciding factors?

Software Mind is widely known as a company with high telco software competence. Among the competitiors Software Mind offered us the best terms.

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

Development and support of enviroment consisting of custom BSS system build in JAVA, Amazon RDS Postgre and MySQL databases, Apache based rest APIs, Rabbit and Nginx LBs, JIRA, Amazon EC2 and S3, CI stack (GitLab, Jenkins), ELK stack

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

There were always at least 5 people, PM, Software Architect, devops /CI specialist, tester and senior developer. Other members joined the the team depending on workload, during thempst intensive development team included up to 6 developers and a leader / chief developer.

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

Software developed and maintained by Software Mind is running without any serious unplanned downtime while servicing more than 400k customers since 2017

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

The project management style is based on good communication and personal relations. It makes it both easier to understand each other and just more fun to work together. Primary means of communication are weekly status meetings, Slack and Jira

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

Flexible approach. We has (much too often) required the order of product delivery to be changed when development had already started or some development to be made "immediately" to secure bussiness continuity. While no one would be happy with impromptu changes, Software Mind is always ready to help us find solutions.

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

Every issue that occured was possible to be solved by talking or negotiation (sometimes a lot of it). I guess when you're open to feedback you just improve on the way.

Please describe your company and your position there.

YourGolfTravel is the worlds largest Golf Tour operator dealing in a B2C Market. As CIO I am responsible for approving all IT spend and tech partners

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

We engaged with Software Mind to design and develop the front end mobile App for our customer base. The App had to integrate with our existing internal systems to deliver accurate and relevant customer content

What were your goals for this project?

To provide our customers with a detailed itinerary of their golf holiday with additional functionality of assigning groups to hotel rooms, and for everyone on the trip to make payments. The App had to be built in a way to make it easily rebranded for sister companies within the same group.

How did you select Software Mind?

A recommendation from a trusted source coupled with our own due diligence based on capability cost and culture.

Describe the project in detail.

The initial phase was to workshop designs and mock up the front end experience to validate with our existing customer base before the development/build phase. This iterative approach of refining the design assisted in ensuring the development scope was agreed and not changed materially throughout subsequent sprints.

What was the team composition?

Our internal team were responsible for the mid office delivery of data to the front end App (for both ios and android) which was delivered from beginning to end by Software Mind.

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

Despite a relatively soft launch across a handful of golf resorts, we immediately experienced a significant increase on online payments and downloads of the app for travellers already booked. This is despite the current market conditions of Covid and lockdowns in the UK.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Excellent. Daily standups successfully run and all projects risks regarding costs and timelines were managed professionally and satisfactorily

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We hit a few bumps along the way but the ability of Software mind to manage issues as they arose with minimal fuss was outstanding

Are there any areas for improvement?

None come to mind!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Senior Director of Software Development for a Default Solutions company.

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

We utilize Software Mind to enhance our various teams for Development, QA and Business Analysis. They provide support for legacy applications, rewrites and new development projects.

How did you select Software Mind and what were the deciding factors?

We wanted to find an offshore vendor that we could use to augment our existing teams.

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

We have used Software Mind to help us support many .NET versions including more recent cutting edge technologies. They have provided support for all aspects of the development life cycle.

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

We have used 10-15 resources over the last year that include developers, QA and business analysts. They work closely with our development and business teams on a daily basis.

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

Software Mind has always delivered on any projects they have been a part of in the past. They are currently working on a major application rewrite and it is on schedule and on budget!

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

We work closely with their PM to keep projects on time and moving forward. We have weekly status meetings so everyone on the team stays on the same page.

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

They are very professional and always try to accommodate any requests we have concerning resources or projects.

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

We have been very happy with Software Mind on all of our projects.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a consultant and technical lead for a global sustainability consultancy.

What challenge were you trying to address with Software Mind?

We wanted to create a solution that enabled our business clients to understand and plan their transitions to a net-zero and low-carbon world.

What was the scope of their involvement?

At the start of the project, we had a storyboard workshop to understand the software solution. We worked together to understand how a solution might operate through the entire user pathway. We then worked in two-week sprints to identify the stories needed to create this online platform to the specifications of the Excel solution.

Software Mind transferred our calculation that existed as an Excel solution into a web-based platform, overcoming the shortcomings of the initial solution. Their team enabled multi-user access, dynamic data management, and inter-company knowledge sharing at a level that wasn’t available through the Excel platform. We released the platform into the marketplace and continued to engage Software Mind for about four months to monitor, maintain, and enhance the platform’s capabilities.

What is the team composition?

We engaged with five main individuals, including a project manager. He managed a team of three .NET developers and one UI/UX developer. Another Software Mind team member led the development team.

How did you come to work with Software Mind?

A member of our team had previous engagements with Software Mind and recommended that we contact them. There was a definite excitement around the capabilities that Software Mind could bring to the project. We were impressed by their proposal, so we decided to pursue the project with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested roughly €150,000 euros (approximately $177,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in September 2019, and it’s due to wrap at the end of October 2020.

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

Throughout the entire engagement, I’ve been impressed with Software Mind. We’re impressed by the solution as well as the timeframe and the cost associated with it. When we faced timeline challenges, their team identified ways to consolidate the solution that enabled us to reach our goals.

Their code's high-quality, and you can see that in the results. I’m impressed with the UI/UX too. Their team definitely listened to how we wanted the solution to look and feel.

How did Software Mind perform from a project management standpoint?

Their team was responsive to our recommendations. Software Mind met all of the platform’s deadlines. Our project manager led the project well, and their team always found a solution to areas of concern.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed by the way that they engaged with a completely new area. Software Mind had never encountered software that involved carbon emissions. They quickly applied their expertise to the specialized field of carbon. Their team also understood the importance of the solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their team was great at creating a product from a blank canvas. Software Mind didn’t offer a maintenance package that would allow us to maintain the solution and fix bugs. That was an area where we struggled to find the right way forward with them that would also fit our budget. They could provide more ad-hoc support to a client’s needs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would encourage you to listen to Software Mind’s process and give their developers the autonomy to be creative. Their process of designing a solution that fit the requirements was impressive.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a deep-linking platform. We build tools for developers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Software Mind?

We needed to scale up our engineering team very quickly, and Software Mind was able to help us with that. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve engaged them on an augmentation basis for our staff, so they’ve worked on a bunch of different projects. Their team is directly integrated with our team to deliver the core deliverables. Most of our work is written in Java and a sizable amount of our projects use big data technologies. They’ve worked in Apache Spark, Presto, Python, and other technologies. 

What is the team composition?

There is a team of around 12 people. There is a delivery manager and a variety of software engineers and data scientists. 

How did you come to work with Software Mind?

I found them through word of mouth. I evaluated a number of different people, but I was impressed with Software Mind earlier on. The examples they brought and how prepared they were to jump into the project for a quick timeline was impressive. 

I also visited their office in person and was impressed by the people I met and the capabilities they had for the types of projects they could work on. Another important aspect was the culture and fast-paced environment they work in.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $200,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2019. 

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

For some projects, we’ve been able to set metrics, but others are more delivery-oriented. Overall, we care about their impact and the feedback from our team has been very positive. Everyone enjoys working with them. Our team reviews the code they deliver and are all satisfied with their work. 

How did Software Mind perform from a project management standpoint?

They use our project management tools, working within our Jira account with us. I meet with them several times a week to make sure everyone is on the same page and on track. That process is going well. They’re super responsive to feedback. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to ramp up so quickly and start contributing to our projects has been most impressive. They don’t take things for granted and are always questioning and trying to understand how they can really best help us. They’re not an execution machine, they want to understand how and why we’re doing certain things so they can deliver the strongest result possible. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the moment, there’s nothing. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It is important to be open with them and not just tell them to do something. Tell them your project and goals and see how you can work together to accomplish it. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Reporting Manager with Revenue Edge SPS. We oversee Revenue Management Systems for portfolios within the Multi-Family Industry. I am responsible for generating and processing reports that are shared with our clients to help them run their day-to-day revenue management needs.

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

We have access to an abundance of reports that provides us with different information and data. Some of those reports had information we wanted but didn't have a way to filter. We needed a way to extract only the information we wanted for our internal reports.

What were your goals for this project?

Our main goal was the time it took to process the information. We also needed a way to extract information we wanted, but didn't have a way to do so.

How did you select this vendor?

I believe they reached out and met with our founder to talk about partnering on potential work.

Describe the project in detail.

We initially asked Software Mind to create an Application that would allow us to filter through reports and extract only the data we needed. Previously, I would extract this information manually and would take me hours.

We already had workbooks that we currently used and didn't want to change. They were able to take what already existed and built the app to accommodate that and they were also able to make a few enhancements. The application process they built allowed us to take those hours and turn them into minutes.

We then asked them to create a user friendly way for us to extract data and create an output that would allow us to then in-turn use it for our internal reports. We provided them with samples of the reports and also a template of what we would like the output to resemble.

What was the team composition?

The initial meetings were with two members of Software Mind and two members of Revenue Edge, myself and my boss, the founder. Eventually, I was the main point of contact between the 2 of them. I was able to provide them with documents and test out the applications as they finished. They were very quick to respond to questions and feedback.

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

Our main objective was to save time. We also had access to all of this other information that we didn't know how to extract easily. We get these reports in excel versions that are in unusable formats with hidden rows, columns, and merged cells, etc, that just made it messy and hard to use.

As stated they were able to take one of our process and turn hours worth of manual work and turn it into minutes. The other process they built within the app we could take over 100 excel documents that are each over 1000 rows of data and extract what we need in the template we provided in a matter of seconds.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our main point of communication was through email as there is a major time difference between the companies. They were able to provide us with a timeline of work completion and they were right on time. They were also very upfront if something was taking longer than expected. They were not hesitant to ask for a phone call to talk something through if email was not enough.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I found that even though they really have no background in the multi-family industry they were able to see our vision and help us get what we needed and how we needed it. They never told us something wasn't possible without doing the research.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, there is nothing I would change about our experience or interaction with Software Mind. They were absolutely wonderful to partner with.

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a software engineering company building a Construction Marketplace and Enterprise Vendor Management & Sourcing SaaS platform for the construction industry in Australia. I am the VP of Engineering.

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

We hired Software Mind for backend and frontend software engineering services to extend our local and remote team capabilities to build new features for the web application.

What were your goals for this project?

Add new feature modules to the existing system, rebuild and extend existing functionality with more scalable solution.

How did you select this vendor?

After an extensive online search, shortlisted potential vendors, discussed requirements with SoftwareMind. Talked with few existing and past clients who talked highly about the vendor. The main deciding factor was the existing experience working as a remote addition to team and professionalism from the first contact. I was responsible for the selection process.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They developed new modules for the application using frontend and backend technologies based on the specification of our product team in Australia. Key functionalities include new modules like Preferred Tenderer selection, Contract Management features, Request for Quotation improvements and many code structural improvements.

What was the team composition?

We started with six software engineers, mixed front and backend developers with a team lead and over time last year increase to nine.

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

They build new features which allow the company to sell for a wider customer base.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They worked with us like would be part of our team in Australia. Collaborated well in shared projects, we used Slack, Jira, BitBucket, Confluence for collaboration. The team used the limited timezone overlap well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They have high technical skills, strong professional attitude and innovative solutions. They continuously improve the codebase, bring regular suggestions. Transparent, well organised team with detailed status and progression tracking.

Are there any areas for improvement?

A small thing to mention. Our dynamic nature of task allocation and constantly changing priorities require a high level of juggling between multiple tasks. For many teams, time-boxed, iterative methodologies are more common. Working with Kanban and Continuous Delivery requires a more flexible approach. Some improvements to change priorities could help to have a smoother flow.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the head of the software engineering department for a financial software company. We create solutions primarily for car finance companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Software Mind?

We wanted to expand our capabilities to scale quickly by having additional partners. We also wanted to validate that we could work with an external partner that wasn't part of the same company. Additionally, we wanted a bit more than our previous development partner could provide, since we had to do all of the design and specifications while working with them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They serve as an augmentation of our full-stack development team for our Java web application using a Spring and Hibernate framework, with JSF. We started with a pilot team, and they came here for a few weeks, where we did some intensive training about the product. Next, we mixed them into teams with some of our employees and gave them real work to complete. As the team grew familiar with the product, we wanted to scale further and created self-sufficient teams comprised of all Software Mind employees.

What is the team composition?

We had 18 members from their team at the peak. We typically fluctuate between 10-17 members of their team and I have one main point of contact.

How did you come to work with Software Mind?

We performed an extensive search across Eastern Europe, and we got a cold call from Software Mind at the time when we were looking. We were really impressed right from the start. They were the clear choice out of all the candidates saw.

How much have you invested with them?  

We invest €70,000 per month (approximately $78,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in July 2017, and our engagement is ongoing.

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

It was obvious from the minute we started working with them that they were really passionate about software development, best practices, and doing things the right way. We had a legacy product that had been built in the last 10-12 years that had a lot of technical debt and had built bad practices around some of our processes. Software Mind was pretty vocal in trying to remedy that and make it right. We were used to partners who do whatever we ask, but they actually helped us improve. In the two and a half years of working with them, they've helped us identify issues and suggest solutions.

Sometimes, we can't always change things and they've been good about accommodating those circumstances. Overall, it's been really good. They're passionate about software development and it rubs off on anyone they work with. They're very hardworking, too and have been a huge help to us.

How did Software Mind perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication is really good, and we have a good policy in place of trying to have video calls whenever possible. We visit each other's offices quite regularly, and they feel like part of our team rather than just an outsource team. We use Jira for project management and delegating tasks to them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their willingness to share knowledge and passion for their craft is infectious. It certainly helps improve our developers, as well as helping us to improve our product. They share knowledge really well within their company; they have a lot of teams working on different technology stacks, they share all of their experiences and knowledge between teams, and we then benefit because they share with us, too.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It's hard to say, but the only real challenges we've had with them are our limited ability to update technology stacks and address technical debt quickly has proved challenging in keeping their best team members happy and motivated. This is largely due to our constraints rather than a failing of theirs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to involve them as much as possible. If you're looking for someone to just do a quick & cheap enhancement to an existing product, they might not be the best company for that. If you're looking for a company that will come in and help improve all aspects of software development and your product development processes, they're the right choice. I've never seen anything like them and I've worked with several outsourcing partners.