Stermedia

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide IT support for the Polish state railway. I’m a system architect for the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Stermedia?

We didn’t have sufficient internal resources to develop and update our customer applications and were looking for a partner that could assist.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve been working with Stermedia for a long time. Their team has a solid understanding of the business functions that we supply to customers through our IT system. Stermedia has primarily worked on a system that supports the claiming process for passengers. We’ve also worked with them on a system for managing card payments at ticket offices and stations. Our technology is about eight years old. We use an Oracle database, and the middle tier is an internet application server running a Java application.

What is the team composition?

The size of the team has varied over time. We were initially working with about seven people, but we have less work at the moment, so we’re only working with four. We have a project manager on their side, but I sometimes explain business cases directly to the developers. The project manager doesn’t always know all the details concerning our product functionality.

How did you come to work with Stermedia?

We have requirements related to processing graphs, and our colleagues in Wroclaw had contracts with Stermedia. It was apparent that they could develop different types of software quickly, so we decided to work with them when we had a larger project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around 400,000 Polish zloty (approximately $110,000) on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Stermedia in May 2009. There was a period of two or three years when we had no work for them, but we started the collaboration again after we received a larger task from the client.

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

I don’t have statistics available right now, but I can say that Stermedia delivered good work on time, in most cases. There were some projects in which the timeline was not held, but our customer accepted the fact, taking into account the complexity of some of the functionalities we were looking to implement.

How did Stermedia perform from a project management standpoint?

We use Microsoft Project to plan the work and Redmine to exchange information, which enables the project manager on Stermedia’s side to manage the team. I can see the progress of their work on my side. The tool is also used to send any issues directly to me.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been impressed with their ability to work on different applications using a variety of tools. We’ve had a meeting with Stermedia about future projects, and while we haven’t yet solidified additional contracts yet, I think that Stermedia has great potential.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have no stable contracts with our customer in the area of updating the application, which makes it difficult for Stermedia to accommodate new tasks. This isn’t at all their fault, but it makes collaboration difficult sometimes.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a medical diagnosis platform. We create medical software and specialize in image processing technology.

What challenge were you trying to address with Stermedia?

We needed to develop a software platform that could share the data morphology of images. It needed to have basic registration and login functionalities. We didn’t have any in-house software engineers, so we needed a partner experienced with machine learning to build a market-ready system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We developed a Python-based algorithm for determining the ratio between healthy and cancerous cells in samples. This created some limitations as there were specific flows for how the data should be shared. Stermedia participated in our weekly scrums to access our goals and work towards achieving them. They built the platform and integrated our algorithm into the software’s code.

What is the team composition?

The team varied depending on our needs across the project. We’ve worked with around four people including a scrum master, two developers, and a machine learning specialist.

How did you come to work with Stermedia?

I worked with them on previous projects, so I knew they had experience with Python-based environments and tools. Those prior efforts were more development focused, but also involved some tasks related to machine learning. They quickly came to mind as a viable development partner.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Stermedia in April 2015 and the collaboration is ongoing. The main development is complete, but we still have some small fixes to make. It’s easier for us to use their team than to hire new developers at this stage.

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

Their work has simplified our process in terms of human resources. Even though some of their members left the project, Stermedia found replacements and kept development progressing consistently. We’re happy with the results.

How did Stermedia perform from a project management standpoint?

They handled the workload expertly and the project was delivered within the initial budget and timeline. The communication was excellent on both the development and managerial fronts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have the ability to provide both development and machine learning services. Whenever we had a problem, we could reach out to a member who had either a mathematical or machine learning background. As a result, Stermedia’s team helped us to quickly implement changes on both the algorithmic and application parts of the project. As the application progressed, we had to adjust the requirements. They made this process simple and transparent for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We didn’t have any significant issues with them. They used GitLab for billing and we found that platform to be unintuitive.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of a company developing a communications solution for businesses to serve families.

What challenge were you trying to address with Stermedia?

We were looking for a partner to strengthen our product development team and assist with more complicated software development tasks.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Stermedia initially helped deliver a proof of concept so we could secure the necessary funding to develop a messaging app for both iOS and Android. Then, their team helped build a fully functioning alpha version. We market-tested the app and Stermedia made necessary bug fixes, functionality tweaks, and improvements. The latest engineering accomplishment included architecting an end-to-end encryption solution fitting our unique business requirements. Their team contributed to research, design, and UX/UI efforts throughout the project, and continues to provide top-notch support and assistance.

What is the team composition?

Since the beginning of the engagement, we have worked with a number of software engineers including two backend engineers, three frontend developers, two different scrum masters, and a designer.  These are very competent full-stack developers.

How did you come to work with Stermedia?

A colleague in our local co-working space recommended them for our development needs.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent between $150,000—$200,000 on the project so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2017 and the project is ongoing.

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

We will be launching a beta version in the near future, and we are looking forward to successful results.

How did Stermedia perform from a project management standpoint?

Though English is their second language, the Stermedia team communicates very well. We have comfortably interacted through Backlog, GitLab, and Trello at different points, in person throughout the engagement, and we have worked from each other's offices.

What did you find most impressive about them?

In addition to excellent engineers, they’re creative thinkers that do thorough research, which helps them provide suggestions, alternatives, and improvements to the initial project plan.

Are there any areas they could improve?

First, there has at times been miscommunication about the estimated time to complete major deliverables, which have impacted our marketing plans.  Also, we have had back and front end queues out of sync at times resulting in inefficiency.  If they had more flexibility with their staffing across projects then estimates could be provided with more certainty. Secondly, we were lacking a scrum master during part of the project and that delayed progress a little.