StarNavi

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a telecom company in the US that provides affordable mobile service for customers.

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

As the company grows and the demand for development to build out better systems for our staff and customers increases, we needed skilled help for the development team to build out internal tools for our agents, more intelligent systems for managing third party integrations, and adding features for a better customer experience in the apps and the customer website.

How did you select StarNavi and what were the deciding factors?

StarNavi approached us when they saw postings for a developer position. They sent some CVs and coding samples for us to review and based on those, we set up interviews. Since then, StarNavi continues to work with us on hiring needs when they arise and strive to provide us with candidates that have a matching skillset and desired skill level.

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

This is an ongoing project where we continue to build and deploy new features as well as debug and maintain systems. The main technologies used are Python, Django, Flask, Postgres, AWS, ECS, Terraform.

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

We currently have two full time backend developers and two full time devops engineers from Starnavi working on the project.

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

With help from Starnavi, we have managed to build a fully automated platform to optimally manage subscriptions with our main service provider to maximize our profits.

This platform not only manages the subscriptions but also audits the bills from this vendor to compare the charges and generate a report of any discrepancies to detect any incorrect charges. On top of that, the developers have added extensive monitoring to ensure our systems and our service provider's systems are working as expected.

On the infrastructure side, their devops engineers have helped build an entire new and scalable infrastructure with several components on ECS in AWS using Terraform while following best practices.

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

Our company handles the project management. For staff management from their side, they are efficient and effective with their communication and provide reasonable timelines.

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

Their internal vetting process and the level of skill of the developers they have to offer.

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

I would have expected a higher degree of feedback solicitation for their developers, but that is a very minor issue in the scope of things. Additionally, if I have any feedback at any given time, they are open to receiving it and making necessary changes on their side.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder at Duxe Software System. We’re a startup that developed a platform based on a major project we’d previously done for one of Australia’s largest multi-national companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with StarNavi?

We did our MVP of the product with an outsourced team and found basic issues with how the platform was developed. The backend and the quality of the frontend visualization states needed to be improved. Additionally, the cost of integrating tenants was too expensive for the tenants.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We branched into creating different versions of the MVP for different use cases. This involved backend development changes and modifying the frontend visualization states based on the UX design that our in-house designers had developed.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager for most of the day-to-day contacts. There was also a dedicated frontend developer and a dedicated backend developer. Toward later stages, we had QA specialists rectifying issues.

It was much easier to work with one developer cohort where they all were in close communication with each other. This prevented us from spending too much time providing multiple versions of briefs to multiple people.

We’d parted with our CFO at this point and dramatically reduced the number of developers we were using from different sources. We chose to concentrate on StarNavi because they were very diligent and provided consistently high-quality work. Additionally, they always looked to improve output and resolve potential issues to preserve the platform’s revenue-generating capabilities.

How did you come to work with StarNavi?

Our former CFO sourced Starnavi and did the due diligence. They determined them to be of a suitable standard and quality.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $40000–$55,000 AUD ($27,500–$37,900 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2018. project completed (next iteration) august 2019.

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

Their proactivity while scoping the project and reviewing our infrastructure helped eliminate issues that would have been problematic and impacted costs. They also delivered richer functionality. Instead of one MPV, we have three versions of the platform that can be applied to different customer needs. The best part is they all run off the same central platform. Currently, we’re re-engaging StarNavi for another project.

How did StarNavi perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Slack and Jira and had discussions with our main point of contact about design characteristics and clarification of requirements. Jira was our task-oriented mechanism around fixes and liaising with QA.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They quickly identified that our large number of developers prevent clear sightlines. Their recommendations greatly simplified our process.

Their diligence and attention to detail, as well as their desire to add value, rather than just finish the project, were great. They were committed to getting the best possible outcome for us and not just pushing us out the door to make room for a new client.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re nice people with reasonable pricing. It wasn’t easy in the beginning, because we were working with so many developers in unintegrated ways. Once we stopped that and focused on StarNavi’s cohorts, we got substantially better outcomes much quicker.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re in Ukraine and we’re in Australia, so it’s hard to manage timeframes, but they tried really hard. We got into a rhythm where they were available to have direct conversations.

Their output was very efficient. With us spending as little as we did (we were bootstrapping no equity) they had to be really valuable. We felt we got the best possible outcome from StarNavi.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product owner at The Outplay Italy, a video advertising platform. Advertisers can plan video ads, and publishers have the ability to monetize their page views. At the same time, the content owner can monetize the video content produced.

What challenge were you trying to address with Starnavi?

We needed help with development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve helped us develop our video advertising platform. The team created the API for our dashboard. They used AWS tools and Python. 

What is the team composition?

We’re in contact with a client partner and two other people. 1–2 engineers collected data and created the API.

How did you come to work with Starnavi?

Another developer suggested them to me.

How much have you invested with them?

My company has spent $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2018, and the work is ongoing.

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

They work really well. They’re not very expensive.

How did Starnavi perform from a project management standpoint?

We work in two-week sprints and have daily standup meetings. We have a good relationship with Starnavi. Their developers are very strong, and we work well together. We communicate via Slack, Skype, and sometimes email. We also use Jira and Confluence.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very precise and dedicated. If we have an urgent issue, they’re very responsive and present.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The communication could be better, and some of their English-language capabilities are too low.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a data science group manager in a large international corporation, our department works on product in the filed of predictive maintenance

For what projects/services did your company hire StarNavi?

Starnavi developers are integrated into our development and analytics teams, continously working on the core products of the company (from sofware and data science prespectives)

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

We are working with several vendors, the work with StarNavi initiated after receiving initial pool of potential candidates. The work of StarNavi was very arranged, professional and we recieved suitable and great candidates from the beginning of the process.

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

One project includes work on core architectural components for one of the critical flows in our system. Other project relates to POC of new capability in a new field that we did not work on before.

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

4 resources, 1 software developer and 3 data scientists

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

The developers perform very well within the team. One of the developers is currently leading the development of a very important architectural component

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The recruitement and hiring workflow were very effecient. If there were delays - it was usually from our side, and StarNavi (Vladimir) always kept track and sent reminders to promote the processes

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

We appreciate their continuous and open communication, high-quality candidates, arranged processes, responsive to feedback and adjustments

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

There was one case of change of rate during the process, but we understand that It came from the candidate and we discussed the motivation to avoid such situations in the future

Please describe your company and your position there.

Chief Product Officer for a medical technology platform focused on improving hospital efficiency by providing critical information for medical clinicians.

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

We required a full stack developer to help us build the frontend and API for a new events scheduling service, which was required to be completed by the end of 2019. This was successfully completed by the developer that Starnavi provided us.

The project is ongoing as we continue to work on further enhancements to the events scheduling system. We also contacted Starnavi to assist us in finding a QA tester.

We now have an ongoing QA tester that performs regression testing prior to a major release, whilst also building out our testing suite.

How did you select StarNavi and what were the deciding factors?

Starnavi was recommended through a local contact. After meeting the Starnavi team and experiencing their efficiency in providing high quality candidates, we knew that we wanted to continue working with them.

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

Project 1: Event scheduling service Objective: Develop a service that allows hospital administrators to create events for clinicians to attend and record their attendance for the event.

Key deliverables: Hospital Administrators can create an event for a future date with configurable settings to confirm RSVP and attendance, Mobile users receive a push notification about event and can scan a QR code to record attendance for when they attend the event.

Technologies: React, Python Project 2: Regression Testing Key deliverables: Develop a testing suite to regression test application prior to a major production release

Steps: Develop testing suite, perform test run prior to each production release Technologies: Testrail

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

We have 2 contractors working with us. The first contractor is a fullstack React developer. The second contractor is a QA tester.

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

We have an events scheduling system which is being used by several hospitals. Regression testing has stabilised our production releases since testing suite has been developed.

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

Very flexible to fit in with our company processes and communication tools.

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

They have excellent service and great quality of candidates.

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

-

Please describe your company and your position there.

Myntelligence is the digital agency of the future. We combine cross channel and cross-platform, digital campaign creation and orchestration together with AI-driven optimisation and recommendation - all within a SaaS platform.

For what projects/services did your company hire StarNavi?

API Developers, UI Developers and Business Analysts.

What were your goals for this project?

To develop a world-class platform developed to the highest standards.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended by one of our lead developers.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Starnavi is a key partner for Myntelligence, we rely on them as a primary supplier of software engineers. The complexity of our projects and the maturity of our agile processes are high and so they work with us to ensure that we are able to staff our engineering teams with individuals with the requisite education, experience and potential to make a consistent contribution.

What was the team composition?

Our team currently consists of 8 SCRUM teams made up of a mix of UI, API, QA and BAs.

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

Simply that we have grown our business extremely rapidly with 300% revenue growth in the last year and with clients amongst some of the worlds leading global enterprises.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We manage our own projects internally based on Scaled Agile methodologies.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They're consistently providing us with bright, motivated, and talented team members at a reasonable cost - and working with us closely to understand our requirements.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I can't think of anything at this point

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are suppliers to the advertising industry, working out logistics for the outdoor advertising market.

For what projects/services did your company hire StarNavi?

We are developing a new service offer which required digital and cloud.

What were your goals for this project?

The solution had to be a mix of mobile application and desktop / cloud application. It needed to look good, professional and sexy. It also needed to interact with our legacy local current solution

How did you select this vendor?

E-mailed 100 potential providers. They were reactive and eager to think about technical solutions and resolution before we had an agreement. I thought they really meant it and so decided to go with them. Their cost were reasonable and they were transparent and trustable.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped on the design thanks to their internal design people. Then they helped us thinking about the product and its structure, how our vision could be best translated in the cloud. They developed the whole backend and frontend.

What was the team composition?

We had a project manager who was the interemediary between us and the technical team.

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

We are going to launch in September.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Went very well, we had one person in charge of the relationship and we were using trello to validate steps and then Sprint.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The fact they were no bullshit, transparent and they really tried to think with us about the product without overstepping on our business case.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think it all depends on the relationship with the project manager. If you go along with him / her, it goes smootly.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the division director for real estate and health care for a machine learning, analytics, and custom software development company. We build custom solutions for problems in healthcare, finance, real estate, and advertising.

For what projects/services did your company hire Starnavi?

We hired Starnavi to help with backend and frontend software development for our Compass project.

What were your goals for this project?

We want to create a next-generation real estate platform that makes it easy to understand communities, neighborhoods, and the place that homes have in them.

How did you select this vendor?

Starnavi responded to one of our RFPs. We were impressed by their grasp of the technologies and scope of the project, so we selected them.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped to design the application architecture, wrote backend and frontend code (using both Python and JavaScript), and contributed extensively to the collection and analysis of data.

What was the team composition?

We worked with four team members, including their CTO, a project manager, and two engineers.

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

We continue to work toward an MVP, but we expect the Compass project to allow our third-party client to efficiently work in ten to fifteen new markets upon launch. The expected impact is likely to double or triple their leads, with a major impact on revenue.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project was centrally managed by our CTO. The Starnavi engineers worked remotely on assigned tasks and delivered code and other artifacts for testing and review. The engineers were professional, hardworking, and completed tasks on time. It was a pleasure to work with them.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were extremely transparent. We interacted directly with the project engineers, incorporated them into our workflow, and offered feedback. Their code was high-quality and easy to merge into the larger product. We were also impressed with their language skills. The remainder of the project team is US-based, and we were able to efficiently pass on complex specifications and schemas with the trust that they would be implemented accurately. When there were confusions, misunderstandings, or issues, Starnavi did an excellent job contacting us to get them resolved as quickly as possible. They have an excellent technical team and we look forward to working with them again in the future.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, we’re completely satisfied.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm responsible for the SW engineering team at a software product company.

For what projects/services did your company hire StarNavi?

Improve the server part of our solution, which is based on Django.

What were your goals for this project?

StarNavi was not hired for a time limited project, but rather to provide talent we would include in our team for a longer period.

How did you select StarNavi?

We search on the web, including different freelancer platforms.

Describe the project in detail.

Improve our Django-based web application. This includes both backend and frontend development.

What was the team composition?

The server team consists of 9 skilled resources, working together in an Agile manner.

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

The resource provided met our requirements with regards to communication, skillset, and commitment.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are used to working with distributed teams, and the StarNavi resource fitted well into our way of working.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with the responsiveness of the business side, who has done their best to answer questions, and assist in requests we've had.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Not that I can think of.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the director of a healthcare business in the allied health space.

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

Development of BI Tool and integration with API of a practice management system.

How did you select StarNavi and what were the deciding factors?

Colleagues have used and still continue to use StarNavi

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

Development of Python job to extract, transform and load to postgres DB from PMS API

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

2 - head Engineer & Developer

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

Fantastic communication. Quick response and build time. Small issues fixed in no time at their cost.

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

Collaborative. Use of Trello and Slack for communication. Use of Google Meet where required.

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

Speed of development, cost effectiveness and knowledge

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

None