Python Powerhouse - Web & Mobile development teams
We are Europe’s largest Python software house. We have over 400 Python, JavaScript (NodeJS), React Native and full-stack developers ready to supercharge your project with extraordinary code.
Based in Poland, we employ a total of over 500 people including Product Designers, Manual QA and QA Automation, DevOps, Machine Learning, Data Engineers, and business communication experts ensuring smooth cooperation with our partners.
With 17 years of experience under our belt, we can provide full-stack web development and cross-platform mobile app solutions to clients across all industries using Python Django, Flask, FastAPI, NodeJS, Angular, ReactJS, React Native, and more. Moreover, we are proud to work with long-term technology partners throughout the US, Canada, Western Europe, Scandinavia, South Africa, Australia, and the Middle East.
Great software begins long before the first line of code is written. That’s why we start our development process with Discovery workshops, UX/UI, web graphic design, and deep analysis of your business needs.
At STX we can easily translate your ideas into successful digital products. Want to learn more? Contact us.
headquarters
other locations
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ul. Zabrska 20 - Global Office Park C Piętro 1Katowice 40-083Poland
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Routeco Office Park Davy Avenue, KnowlhillMilton Keynes MK58HJUnited Kingdom
Focus
Portfolio
Mastercard, Decathlon, Tiqets, Verisk, Seerene, Verve, Hogarth WW, Pixomondo, Unity Technologies, Blocktrade, IMD Optimad, Google, Wunderman, Vyze, Coras, Realface, BetBright, KNMP, Paze, Decernis, Scurri, Newable, and more.
Tailored cat food service
ABOUT
Launched in 2014, tails.com is a nutritionally tailored pet food service that creates a unique recipe for every single dog it serves from a million combinations, based on his or her age, breed, needs and preferences. The subscription-based product helps dog owners target their pet's specific health improvements through their diet. It offers a complete, balanced nutrition plan that also adjusts with the dogs as they age.
PROJECT DETAILS
Building upon the success of the dog food platform, tails.com decided to launch a parallel service for cats, called Republic of Cats. The company chose STX Next as its software development partner to help build an application suite for the project.
Republic of Cats provides subscription-based feeding plans for felines that have been tailored to each pet’s unique nutritional needs and preferences. Customers can manage their subscriptions using a desktop dashboard and a mobile application.
CHALLENGE
Republic of Cats operates almost as a startup within tails.com. The main challenge facing the project managers was launching the product within a short timeframe and growing it towards a positive ROI that would warrant the continuation of the project. To achieve this goal, they needed an application suite to be built from scratch.
At the start of the cooperation, the project managers had initial product research and business hypotheses, but most branding elements and feature specifications were not yet available.
As a result, tails.com needed flexible, scalable design and development teams to help it refine the requirements and produce the full service in a timely manner.
Blocktrade—a crypto trading platform
ABOUT
Blocktrade is a state-of-the-art crypto trading platform that prioritizes speed, reliability and safety. It allows retail users, brokers, professional traders as well as institutional money managers to trade with crypto assets and indices in a fully audited and highly secure way.
CHALLENGE
Blocktrade’s challenge was to build a top-of-the-line trading portal in the shortest possible time window and build an internal team of experts who will take over the development of the solution provided by STX Next. Working with Blocktrade, we created a web application that will allow retail users, brokers, professional traders as well as institutional money managers to trade with crypto assets and indices in a fully audited, highly secure way, performing similarly to Nasdaq.
Tiqets—a ticket-booking platform
ABOUT
Tiqets is an innovative platform for booking tickets to museums and attractions around the world. Since it was founded in 2014, the company has sold over 10 million tickets to more than 2,000 venues in 60+ countries. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Tiqets employs over 200 people and has offices in various locations globally. It’s raised €54 million in a recent funding round led by Airbnb.
CHALLENGE
The main challenge for STX Next was to find ways to integrate the Tiqets platform with as many ticket providers as possible, so that users would no longer need to register with each of them individually while planning their trip.
We were able to meet the client’s expectations by moving from a monolithic system to a microservice-based architecture, which was able to make direct contact with ticket suppliers via a variety of APIs.
To make sure that the platform was fully integrated with vendors at all times without disruptions, we also delivered round-the-clock, real-time monitoring services. They allowed us to have a full picture of the integrations at any given moment and step in to fix any issues before they escalated. Where vendors didn’t provide any API for us to integrate with, we created web crawlers that went through their pages to purchase tickets.
Lamden—Python Blockchain Development
ABOUT
Lamden is a suite of developer tools that speed up the process of creating new and custom blockchains and apps. The Lamden Tau token connects these new projects together to create the first ever blockchain enterprise solution. The Tau token has a more general use as a universal swap token between most existing cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others. This will allow TAU to exchange seamlessly between endless cryptocurrency pairs.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Clove, which we are working on, is a decentralized application that makes atomic swaps between chains easy. Most Bitcoin-based and Ethereum-based chains, including ERC20 tokens, are compatible with the protocol. Clove enables decentralized payment channel swaps and facilitates trustless communication between compatible blockchains on the network.
NOTA NOTA—personal fragrance-mixing system
ABOUT
NOTA NOTA allows designers and creators from all over the world to design and share perfumes. It’s a new concept of mixing perfumes as part of your daily routine, just like using your coffee machine. NOTA NOTA received the iF Design Award in the Product category in 2018.
CHALLENGE
NOTA NOTA wanted to build an app that would streamline the user flows and interface, as well as expand the social functionalities.
STX Next worked in continuous feedback mode, adjusting features and screens to the client’s needs as quickly as possible. We put a great deal of effort into making the product easy to develop and maintain by using automation and containerization, static typing and static code analysis support, and automated unit testing.
To reduce the costs both during and after development, we built the new NOTA NOTA app from scratch using React Native for cross-platform mobile development. We also used tried-and-tested, out-of-the-box solutions to limit the cost of features such as analytics, push notifications, or crash and error reporting.
Product Design played a key role in the development process, working hand in hand with the development team to create a seamless experience. All the core app functionalities were redesigned by applying new user flows and interactions for designing, producing, and sharing perfumes.
Newable—easy business loans
ABOUT
Newable Limited is a leading SME lender in the UK. Newable Limited and Liberis Limited. Newable Business Finance is focused on enabling growth of UK SMEs through the provision of finance to those who feel they are unable to access finance through mainstream providers (such as banks).
CHALLENGES
Newable reached out to us with a complete idea for the product’s MVP and a very short deadline. They were faced with the task of transferring their whole loan application process from paper printed documents to the Internet. The system had to be easy to understand and use and reduce application time for end-customers while still including several levels of approval.
STX Next delivered the entire platform along with automatic payments/payouts, integration with external tools, and additional mentoring services.
CAS, visa, and arrival automation platform
ABOUT
Enroly provides the first CAS, visa and arrival automation platform. It makes post-acceptance administration simple and secure, allowing universities to easily implement the solutions into their existing systems. Not only does it help improve enrolment systems, but it also automatically detects risk factors to help higher education institutions to prevent mistakes that would otherwise become deferrals, withdrawals and refusals. Enroly's range of products are used by universities, students, agents, and regional offices in more than 100 countries around the world.
PROJECT DETAILS
Enroly CAS SHIELD, one of the company's three core services, helps university staff manage applications from prospective students. By offering functionalities such as smart prioritization of large applicant volumes, student interview booking system, and automated reading and assessing of documents, the company helps improve enrolment numbers.
The platform also automatically detects risk factors and assigns enrolment confidence scores to applications. STX Next collaborated with Enroly to increase efficiency and effectiveness with machine learning solutions, including by automating document processing and information extraction.
CHALLENGE
Since Enroly's platform hosts large volumes of documents, the company was looking for ways to make their processing more efficient, free up their clients' employee time, as well as speed up the verification of documents and the application for the CAS statement.
The first challenge, therefore, was to identify the specific areas that would benefit from the introduction of machine learning, and create a workable project scope.
Once the scope was established, Enroly needed the right tools to help it process and extract the relevant information from the huge range of documents it receives from all over the world (for instance birth certificates, bank statements, and handwritten notes) in varying quality and formats (for instance scans and photos).
Quality-focused IPR&D solutions
ABOUT
Evalueserve is the largest service provider of quality-focused IPR&D (In-Process Research & Development) search, intelligence, and IP prosecution solutions that brings together first-rate data analysis with cutting-edge technologies.
Evalueserve uses their proprietary methodology to help organizations across various industries achieve better performance, become more connected, and generate more value. They combine the insights emerging from data and research with the efficiency of digital tools and platforms to design impactful solutions, tailored for their clients’ business needs.
PROJECT DETAILS
The client initially wanted to speed up the development of their product Insightloupe™ by extending their team with Python specialists. That was the original reason they had picked STX Next, the largest Python software vendor in Europe, as their outsourcing partner.
Being a Dutch subsidiary of a large Indian company, their in-house team had already been working with a mixed team of developers from both India and the Netherlands, but they were looking for backend support closer to the Netherlands. Teaming up with a Python shop based out of Poland made sense for Evalueserve.
CHALLENGE
Evaluserve’s product Insightloupe™ was created predominantly for large corporations with internal R&D departments.
The goal of Insightloupe™ is to help analysts research patent data, which is then presented to Evalueserve’s clients—such as managers, R&D specialists, or patent attorneys—helping them decide whether to invest in a particular technological domain. Simply put, it means that Evalueserve supports and facilitates making high-stakes business decisions within the field of data analysis.
Single-molecule scripting platform
ABOUT
LUMICKS arms life science researchers and drug development professionals with Nobel Prize-winning technology to uncover how single-molecule and single-cell level processes work. With LUMICKS’ solutions, researchers can quickly perform large amounts of automated single-molecule experiments with more accuracy. As a result, researchers can improve human health and answer life science questions that people couldn’t answer before.
PROJECT DETAILS
Harbor is a platform created specifically for researchers which enables them to make experiments easier, more reproducible and faster than ever before.
On this platform, researchers can easily publish, download, review and cite automation scripts and data analysis methods used for dynamic single-molecule research.
Joining the platform means that researchers can also benefit from becoming part of a community based around single-molecule experimentation where they can share knowledge and talk about their experiences.
CHALLENGE
At the moment when they approached STX Next, LUMICKS had a big picture idea of what Harbor would be.
But the devil was in the details, and in the many unanswered questions LUMICKS faced:
- How should the platform look and feel?
- What features should be included in the MVP?
- What should the tech stack be?
- What team size and budget are needed to deliver the MVP, and how quickly can it happen?
Lumicks needed not just to answer these questions, but to actually get the work done:
- create the design;
- get aligned around one common product idea;
- present that product idea to potential users at an upcoming science fair only one month away;
- actually build the MVP of the product within four months.
BuildFax—property intelligence solutions
ABOUT
BuildFax provides business-critical property condition and history data to the largest insurance and financial institutions in the world. Based in Austin, Texas, the company delivers detailed data on remodeling, solar installations, major systems, new construction, maintenance history, and more. Their database encompasses over 84 billion data points on commercial and residential structures. In 2019, BuildFax was acquired by Verisk—a leading data analytics provider in the US.
CHALLENGE
Our goal was to provide BuildFax with modern tools for handling big data. Before working with STX Next, their speed of receiving data sometimes took up to four times longer than the maximum time business logic allowed.
Our solution to BuildFax’s challenge was using the Spark technology; or, more specifically, its Python implementation: the PySpark and Databricks tools.
To accomplish this, STX Next provided a team of three developers whose task was supporting the BuildFax team throughout that difficult and trying process.
BuildFax were very happy with our services and expanded their team as time went by, most notably with 24/7 maintenance and monitoring.
Vyze—financing platform for retailers
ABOUT
Vyze is a leading financial technology company for retailers and manufacturers, acquired by Mastercard in 2019 and then Ally Lending in 2021. By combining a comprehensive lending supply, technology, and support under one roof, Vyze is able to deliver businesses simpler, more satisfying financing experiences for their customers, wherever and whenever they shop. Formerly known as NewComLink, Vyze raised $13 million in series B funding in 2016, bringing the total funding to $35 million.
CHALLENGE
The main challenge for Vyze was scaling up their internal development team—bringing resources on board with the right skill set, who could hit the ground running and be able to execute on their strategy. They required qualified developers with extensive knowledge and prior experience.
STX Next is meeting the challenges of the project head-on. Firstly, simultaneous dedication to two platforms alone is quite demanding. Secondly, certain solutions implemented in these products could not be found in other financing platforms, meaning the developers had to design the solutions from scratch. Finally, as the project progresses, the team is not only developing a cutting-edge fintech application, but also working together with Vyze to implement the best Scrum practices.
STX Next Delivered
- On-site financing platform for retailers
- Fulfilling eCommerce financing experience
- Advanced and robust API
- Full automatic test coverage with Behave and Selenium
- Secure online credit applications and payments
- Quick credit assessment
- Intuitive front-end design
Unity—BuildBot-based continuous integration tool
ABOUT
Unity Technologies is the creator of a flexible and high-performance end-to-end development platform used to create rich, interactive 2D, 3D, VR, and AR experiences. Unity’s powerful graphics engine and full-featured editor serve as the foundation to develop beautiful games or apps and easily bring them to multiple platforms: mobile devices, home entertainment systems, personal computers, and embedded systems.
CHALLENGE
Due to their large scale of operations and specific needs, Unity Technologies decided to create in-house tools for software development. Unity Technologies asked STX Next for assistance in maintaining and steadily improving one such tool called Katana.
Katana is a fork of BuildBot—a continuous integration tool written in Python using the Twisted framework. With one master server, Katana is able to use an unlimited number of slave machines to perform builds.
STX Next helped create Katana to meet the demand of more than 10,000 builds per day. With its scale, Katana is crucial for Unity’s daily operations, as any downtime would affect hundreds of Unity’s developers. Challenges included resolving memory leaks, dealing with race conditions, and adding new features to the highly sensitive system.
Fleet Command mobile strategy game
ABOUT
DIGIT Game Studios is the largest game developer in Ireland, founded in 2012. With their vastly talented team of over 70 people, DIGIT makes free-to-play mobile strategy games. Released in 2014, the studio’s first game, Kings of the Realm, became a worldwide hit and the highest-grossing strategy game in over 50 countries. DIGIT followed up on their successful debut in 2018 with the release of Star Trek Fleet Command.
PROJECT DETAILS
STX Next supported DIGIT Game Studios in the final phases of getting ready for the worldwide launch of the free-to-play strategy mobile game set in the marvelous world of one of pop culture’s largest and greatest phenomena: Star Trek.
Star Trek Fleet Command is one of the biggest strategy games on mobile. Getting into the skin of a bone fide fleet commander, you assemble a crew, forge alliances, and set out on an epic adventure to rule over the galaxy with your armada. The game allows you to pick a side in the galactic war and fight arm in arm with the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans. Alternatively, you can be your own man or woman and walk a path of your choosing in the power struggle for galactic conquest. The choice is yours.
CHALLENGE
DIGIT Game Studios came to us for support in finalizing the mobile game they were building with Python on the server-side. At the time, development was already well underway and in the late stages. In order to deliver the product in time and of the highest possible quality, DIGIT decided they could use an extra pair of hands to help them out.
Decernis—regulatory and safety compliance
ABOUT
Based in Washington DC, Decernis provides regulatory expertise and systems to manage food, consumer, and industrial product safety compliance across more than 180 countries. Decernis gives clients a complete regulatory intelligence on the market through unique, fully integrated, patented technology platforms covering over 80,000 regulations.
CHALLENGE
Decernis’ application was based on a fairly old technological stack. Supporting the technology was a growing challenge, and Decernis saw the need to push the project into a direction where they could switch to newer technologies with better support. Another challenge for Decernis was finding a partner who could work with their multiple offices in various locations around the globe and across multiple time zones.
Seerene—a code and people management platform
ABOUT
Seerene is a code+people management platform that sets a new standard for how CIOs manage their most important resources – their codebase and engineering capacity. The company is based in Germany with additional offices in Hong Kong and the US.
CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge for the multiple product teams in this project has been finding the right way to implement deep analytics algorithms that transform low-level code-related metrics into KPIs and insights for C-Level users, Seerene’s target group. The team is constantly developing new features and machine learning capabilities into the product to make the raw data more consumable and full of value for decision makers of large corporates.
STX Next tackled the challenge by providing 2 full Scrum teams (+ Product Design support) and integrating their work with Seerene’s internal teams.
Zappi—a platform supporting supply teaching
ABOUT
Zappi is a new company on the UK supply teaching market. They come with 20 years of experience in recruitment and education and a strong focus on positive user experience and employee happiness. Their new app effortlessly connects teaching and support staff with local schools for supply work—making the process faster, easier and more transparent. Zappi teachers lead to happy kids!
CHALLENGE
Zappi approached us with the need to design and build their application almost from scratch. But they knew they wanted Python, as they were well-versed in its advantages. They emphasized developing the application following good practices. We used the design thinking process to shape the solution and agile methodology to implement it. Thanks to our joint efforts, the Zappi idea of creating freedom of choice for schools and supply staff is live.
Signal Kit—smart communication tools for the K-12
Signal Kit is a complete communication suite for the K-12 community. With cloud-based mass communication, internal collaboration, business intelligence and industry leading oversight.
STX Next delivered:
- Discovery workshops followed by a UX Audit of the existing web system to understand the potential risks, test usability and accessibility, find friction points, and recommend improvements.
- A full-featured React Native mobile app.
- Web App Improvements. We took an existing system and improved its design coherency to create or adjust the features that met the requirements of the users and business partners. We also prepared the product for future improvements.
- Product recognition support through various design tasks, from product marketing materials, through motion and interaction designs and vision, to small interface tweaks.
meet.mba—an MBA social networking platform
ABOUT
meet.mba is an online networking and communication tool designed for MBA admits, students, and alumni. It was created by Matthew Brooke-Hitching, an MBA who noticed the need to improve communication and collaboration throughout the business school journey. The resulting online platform now connects almost 4,000 MBAs and Executive MBAs around the world.
CHALLENGE
The reason to create the meet.mba platform was the lack of an appropriate tool that would allow MBA students and alumni to effectively communicate with each other.
Matthew Brooke-Hitching chose STX Next on account of the knowledge, tools and experience we could provide. We had a tight deadline for completing the product, but managed to stand up to the challenge.
STX Next delivered a full Scrum team with support from a PO, advised on the scope of the MVP, and helped prioritize tasks. Our tech stack included Django, React, PostgreSQL, Docker, and more.
The MVP allowed meet.mba to gain 500 users in the first 3 months from launch. Its features include intuitive private and group chat, user profiles with deep privacy customization, and a global board for requests for help, all tailored specifically to the MBA experience.
Online B2B fish and seafood marketplace
ABOUT
Procsea is the first online B2B fish and seafood marketplace. It simplifies and optimizes seafood purchases by putting buyers in direct contact with fishermen, suppliers, and fish merchants across Europe. Procsea has revolutionized the previously overly complex maritime industry by removing the need for intermediaries and promoting short supply chains. The platform’s innovative approach, which focuses on sustainable and traceable fishing, is free to use for both buyers and sellers.
PROJECT DETAILS
Procsea was looking to give an overall upgrade to its fish-selling platform to make it more efficient and user-friendly.
CHALLENGE
To achieve this objective, the company needed to migrate its website to the latest version of Python, make improvements to the code, integrate with a new CRM, and fix some of its databases.
Data analytics platform for debt securities
ABOUT
Credit Rubric is a UK based data analytics platform for European debt securities. They provide independent quantitative analysis combining financial performance, credit metrics and market pricing. Credit Rubric is also a part of the financial information group, Acuris. Their main goal is to store and share information regarding High Yield Bonds, the issuing companies, all details of the bonds, as well as up to date information.
PROJECT DETAILS
Credit Rubric is a tool that will help traders make better decisions.
The platform will provide the traders the necessary support by collecting and displaying data regarding High Yield Bonds and performing complex calculations.
CHALLENGE
Our challenge was to prepare an MVP of a system that will allow users to query for high yield bonds and display their details including financial performance statistics and yield calculations.
System for financing the lease of vehicles
ABOUT
VB Leasing Poland SA is part of VB-Leasing International Holding GmbH. It is a member of the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken association of banks. Today it is one of the leading leasing companies in Central and Eastern Europe and the leading company on the Polish market.
PROJECT DETAILS
The system allows for intuitive negotiation of financial parameters, comparison between multiple variants of hundreds of offers and simplification of this procedure by issuing automated decisions and compliance reports.
Cashback and Rewards
ABOUT
TBSeen is a startup run by 12 British female celebrities, including the founder Kate Thornton. TBSeen.com brings together money-saving deals, offers, and rewards from 500 carefully-curated brands, blended with original, entertaining and helpful content.
CHALLENGE
TBSeen is a unique start-up case. Due to celebrities bringing in followers that immediately converted to sales, the site is making money from day one. The problem was scaling up: with a London agency of just a few devs, TBSeen could not keep up with the pace of their business growth. The need to scale rapidly and within budget brought TBseen and STX Next together.
STX Next provided TBSeen with discovery workshops, a full Scrum team, full-stack development, automated testing, business analysis, continuous integration and product design services.
Sales & Marketing software for live entertainment
ABOUT
Verve (Formerly known as StreetTeam) is the world’s leading peer-to-peer sales and marketing software for live entertainment. Verve enables its customers to turn their most influential fans into ambassadors who promote their events, selling more than 300,000 tickets in 14 countries since 2012.
CHALLENGE
Verve came to us with an original product built in PHP and a long list of reasons why they wanted to switch to Python going forward, referring to it as a more modern solution. Their current development team is well-versed in PHP but not Python, so they were looking for a provider to manage development in the midterm while their own developers got up to speed on using Python.
STX Next Delivered
- A global platform that enables advocates to experience the products that they love with their friends
- A unique SaaS application for brands, campaign managers and ambassadors
- A system that builds a strong relationship between events and their fans
- Advocacy driven model that can work in almost any vertical that has a shared experience at its core
Ticket distribution platform
ABOUT
Connecting the world to tickets. Based out of Dublin, Coras allows customers to purchase tickets for any event or activity, through whatever online channel they choose.
CHALLENGE
For Coras, the challenge was releasing a working MVP of their product in a short period of time in order to secure another advance of their financing. They were looking to create an app from scratch to serve as a ticket distribution platform for cultural and entertainment events from many content providers. One of the main issues was finding a common solution for all stakeholders of the project and integrating it with one of the major European airlines.
STX Next Delivered
- 2 Full Scrum teams to meet the designated goals of the project.
- Manage the mark back of tickets from one seller to the other for both general admission and seated events
- Track ticket sales across all allocated sellers with a complete audit trail from allocation to sale
- Create events and allocate tickets to ticketing agents or through user’s ticketing system
- API that allows any ticketing system to integrate with Coras, helping to adjust the process to meet specific needs
Preprocessing automation for a visual effects
Pixomondo is an international visual effects company with a global network of studios in Los Angeles, Toronto, Stuttgart, Beijing, Vancouver, Frankfurt and Shanghai. The company is revolutionizing its industry offering visual effects production and supervision, CG character creation, 3D animation and pre-visualization for the feature film, television, and commercial industries. Among their projects are Game of Thrones, Star Trek Discovery, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., X-Men, Fast and Furious and Wonder Woman.
CHALLENGE:
Pixomondo receives video frames from their clients in different formats with different naming conventions and file structures. Each asset requires specific preprocessing which until now was done semi-automatically with console tools. Their challenge was to create a configurable desktop application with a UI for automating the preprocessing step, allowing Pixomondo to implement further image processing.
SOLUTION:
To achieve this goal, STX Next used sophisticated logic combined with regular expressions. It led the team to create a variety of unique processors dedicated to transforming the required files. All of the logic is easily configurable through a dedicated desktop application. This allowed us to retain the flexibility of console tools, but also greatly speed up batch operations and minimize the manual work behind repeatable tasks.
Transportation dispatch system
ABOUT
T Dispatch was a progressive software development company which has built a unique dispatch system for passenger transport fleets.
CHALLENGE
Due to T Dispatch’s diverse, global customer base, there was a demand for localized customer features and payment service provider integrations. The development team also had to focus on improving the performance of the overall system in order to handle an increasing number of end-users.
STX Next Delivered
- New search engine, over 10 times faster than the previous one
- Increased performance which eliminated system outages
- Security improvements related to booking and payment processes
- Integration with payment providers in 7 countries
Online cookery platform
ABOUT
Founded in 2005, Key Ingredient is based in Austin, Texas, and features more than 2 million recipes that have been shared by cooks over the years. With about 3,000,000 unique visitors per month, their largest demographic segment consists of millennial home cooks.
CHALLENGE
The website, despite its long existence, was poorly optimized for SEO and the design required some refreshment, especially on the mobile site, because the majority of the users access the website from a mobile device. Another issue was that the page loading time was highly insufficient. The code itself contained a lot of legacy code, with outdated libraries and unused features.
STX Next Delivered
- Site speed improvement (4-5x faster)
- The highest SEO ratings due to front-end, back-end, and sitemaps improvements
- Streamlined technical stack by moving categories to elastic search (removing Oracle), moving pages to site (removing Unbounce)
- Moved ad code to site for better targeting, and higher revenue (managing ads and vendor in Doubleclick)
- 4,5 TB of unused stored data cleaned
- Secure https protocol, instead of previously used http
- Fully responsive web design (still in progress)
- Food industry articles available to users
- Admin Panel, redesigned and upgraded with new tools (such as image management)
- Automated tests (Selenium, Behave) to increase site quality
Realface (Acquired by Apple in 2017)
ABOUT
RealFace was a company whose mission was to revolutionize the way people are recognized. They were creating A.I software with the aim of bringing back human perception to digital process, delivering to customers the technologies needed to connect with their consumers in the digital era. Acquired by Apple in 2017.
CHALLENGE
RealFace was looking for a tech partner who could integrate their library written in C and take over development from a previous company. Their real challenge, however, was to find developers who could understand the logic of the AI face recognition system and deal with GPUImage and the dlib face detector.
STX Next Delivered
Using the most advanced technologies in A.I, developed in-house, STX Next created a user centered authentication service. Meet the first anti-spoof application tailored for everyday use on your device.
FEATURES
- iOS and Android
- Face detection functionality
- Libraries: OpenCV, dlib
- Mp4 with av-Foundation
- Connections with Amazon S3
Fintech consulting services
ABOUT
finstreet GmbH provides consulting services to banking and financial services organizations in Germany. Their focus is on the conceptual design, as well as the development and distribution of digital products and business models.
CHALLENGE
finstreet’s biggest challenge was the race against time. They needed to create a banking application in less than 4 months. The app required fully responsive web design while providing the highest quality of user experience. At the same time, server-side app security was a top priority for this banking project.
STX Next Delivered
- 1 Full Scrum team
- Backend Development
- Frontend Development
- UI Design
- Automated Testing
- Automation of deployment processes
Strategic partner for digital commerce brands
ABOUT
FusePump is a strategic partner for brands, helping them understand and apply technology to succeed in digital commerce. Established in 2009, FusePump started by offering technology that scrapes websites and returns organized, high-quality, real-time data. In 2011, the company launched the first ever BuyNow solution which uses the same data-retrieving expertise to connect customers with live retailer prices.
CHALLENGE
The client came to us with an idea for the product’s MVP. The system needed to be easy to use and flexible enough to build different types of advertisements. The biggest challenge for FusePump was to provide a common solution for all clients who had different needs.
STX Next Delivered
- One permanent and one temporary Scrum Team available exclusively to the client
- A set of features and tools extending the basic functionalities of the platform (e.g. providing a data validation tool and a data mapping tool)
- Analysis and ideas for improvements to the development process – delivered as a workshop in the spirit of Lean process management
Online media marketing
ABOUT
Analytics, DMP and DSP solutions based on cookie-less technology. Myntelligence helps companies put their customers first, to transform these customer’s digital model into a user-centric business and manage audience buying independently.
CHALLENGE
TheOutplay was looking for a tech partner to create an MVP of their product. Their goal was to present the MVP to potential clients and investors and secure further rounds of funding. They were looking for a quick and cost-effective solution to have a presentable prototype as soon as possible.
STX Next Delivered
- User’s data visualization with interactive charts
- Ability to group unique users into segments
- Online campaigns management module
- Campaign efficiency analysis module
- Admin panel for platform management (creating accounts, managing permissions, etc.)
- “Demo account” for sales presentations purposes
- Marketplace functionality for trading the segments
Consumer finance company
ABOUT
Paze was founded on the premise of eliminating the dependency on short-term credit and encourage working people to save. It is a next-generation consumer finance company that lets customers get the money they’ve already earned without waiting for payday. Paze does this by paying customers their salary on a daily, weekly, or on-demand basis and collecting from the employer at the end of the month.
CHALLENGE
Paze needed to scale up their development team quickly while ensuring that they bring software engineers with the right skills on board. They were about to launch their service and needed more resources for support and future development.
STX Next Delivered
- Every day reports about reconciliation
- Tab for checking statuses of disbursements
- Using cards for paying installments after opt-out
- Tab for employers to manage their employees
Closed captions and video intelligence service
ABOUT
Cielo24 delivers searchable captions, media data and media intelligence for large media platform partners in the online education, enterprise, news, and entertainment markets. Their clients turn to Cielo24 to meet the growing demands on their multimedia including compliance laws, discoverability, reach and user engagement.
CHALLENGE
Due to limited internal bandwidth, Cielo24 sought a qualified technology partner to support their inhouse development team on a series of complex projects. They were looking for skilled developers who could develop and maintain their product.
STX Next Delivered
- User requirements validation
- Project scoping
- Data preparation and migration
- Custom functional development
- User Interface/User Experience
- Performance testing, maintenance and support
Pharmaceutical organization
ABOUT
KNMP (The Royal Dutch Pharmacists Association) is a Dutch umbrella organization for both professional pharmacists and the pharmacy in general. It promotes both the interests of its members and the interests of the pharmaceutical sector in the Netherlands.
CHALLENGE
The goal was to create a viable product that would help KNMP manage shortages and inform specialists about supply forecasts. The ambitious goal was to be completed within a fixed price/fixed scope project. Despite very thorough documentation, the final product needed to evolve to fit the needs of the end users.
STX Next Delivered
- A custom Content Management System that allows the management of medicine shortages
- An application design that enables the user to easily update content
- A system that quickly notifies doctors, pharmacists, and patients of the availability of a particular medicine
Online casino and sports betting
ABOUT
Based in Dublin and founded in 2012, BetBright is an online UK sports betting and gaming operator. BetBright takes an innovative and disruptive technology-based approach to winning on the product, which delivers the very best user experience possible.
CHALLENGE
With three internal teams already working on their project, BetBright found themselves with a need to scale up their development rapidly. In order to do so, they were looking for capable and affordable developers with the ability to make an immediate impact.
STX Next Delivered
- Casino “Quick Deposit” allows users to continue to deposit money during the game without interruption
- Mobile page redesign including Blog & Widgetisation allows BetBright customers to stay updated with current events
- “Recall” adds personalized bet recommendations based on the customers’ bet history. (15+% conversion)
- “Automated Bonus” feature potentially adds 10% to every new customer LTV
- Live Casino for Mobile enables users to place bets using mobile devices
Reviews
the project
Mobile App Development for Dating & Matchmaking App
“They’re very involved in the project, and they love our business.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the co-founder of Trueflutter App, a dating and matchmaking app. It’s designed specifically for people of African heritage.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We had built the first version of our mobile dating app with the help of another company, but we were unsatisfied with their services. As our frontend was built on React Native and our backend on Node.js, we needed a company knowledgeable about those technologies so that they could come in and fix what we already had. Additionally, we wanted them to build out the new features and functionalities we wanted on the platform.
What was the scope of their involvement?
STX Next has taken over what the other company had done, rewriting almost the entire code. From the beginning, they assessed the entire app and planned how to get it to where we wanted it to be. Since then, they’ve been developing it further, module by module and page by page, improving all of its major functionalities. The only aspect they haven’t rewritten is the algorithm in our backend.
What is the team composition?
We initially worked with a senior backend engineer, a junior backend engineer, and a frontend React Native engineer. We also interacted with a technology leader who wasn’t working full-time on the project. Additionally, we engaged with two people focused on machine learning for about two weeks.
We currently have a dedicated team member who spends a certain number of hours per month working on our account. We scaled STX Next’s team down because we’re not actively developing features at the moment.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
We searched for a company specializing in React Native and Node.js, and we found STX Next on Clutch.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent around $130,000–$150,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in May 2021, and our engagement is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Thanks to STX Next’s work, what we now have is very different from what they inherited from the former team, which is why we’ve been working with them non-stop since they joined. Mobile apps have a crash-free user rate on Google Analytics, which tells how stable the platform is. When STX Next joined, the crash-free user rate on the app was 89%–90%. Now, our rate is 99%, which means that our app is very steady. Additionally, our average review rate on Google Play was about 3.1 stars, but our current rate is about 4.2 stars.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
STX Next´s project management is excellent; they’re phenomenally good and offer a lot of transparency. The project leader is very experienced, and he brings all of his experience to the team.
We have weekly standup meetings to align on our weekly objectives, and we plan everything out at the beginning of every month. So far, STX Next has always stayed on task. Additionally, they’re very organized. We communicate via Slack, where we have multiple channels to discuss different subjects. We also use email and have Google Meet calls.
What did you find most impressive about them?
From the beginning, I knew that STX Next would offer a very different approach from everyone else. They initially asked me to share the vision of what we were trying to accomplish as a startup, which was very unusual for me to be asked that. When I explained the vision, the level of excitement that their entire team had was evident.
Since that meeting, STX Next has been acting as part of my company, showing great enthusiasm to make my vision a reality. One time, we had an issue with the database. Although one of their technical people was on vacation, he saw the Slack notification and fixed the problem in 20–30 minutes. At some point, they even gave us marketing advice, showing that they really cared about the success of the project. Overall, they’re very involved in the project, and they love our business.
Are there any areas they could improve?
We had an issue, but it was more my fault than theirs. When we onboarded a couple of resources into the project to fix some specific problems, there were some financial implications that I didn’t fully grasp, and they thought that I had understood them. When I saw my invoice at the end of that month, I was a little bit startled. However, they explained again how the billing for the additional resource worked.
After that, they immediately created a Google spreadsheet to ease these kinds of conversations. Whenever we have new projects now, they put them in the sheet, including the estimated work hours required and what kind of bill to expect at the end of the month. The moment they started doing that, the problem got solved.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Work with STX Next. If you can tell them what your long-term plans are, they’ll be able to plan out the resourcing for you much better.
the project
Staff Augmentation for Cloud Consulting Company
"Even though we’re already experts in the field, we were still surprised by how much we were able to learn from them."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
We are a European consulting company in the managed cloud services space. I lead the operations, specifically in our German, Austrian, and Swiss markets.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We were in need of consulting services from a cloud specialist. We also needed this specialist to be available on very short notice.
What was the scope of their involvement?
STX Next helped us out on two main projects. The first involved our customer’s transition from AWS to our cloud environment. We were in a situation where the scope of the project was much bigger than we anticipated due to the size of that customer’s IT environment. STX Next helped us quickly ramp up to address that problem.
Because of how skillfully they handled that first project, we decided to extend their contract and partner with them again, this time on the automation of that customer’s successfully transitioned cloud environment.
What is the team composition?
There were a total of five engineers from STX Next who worked with us. My main contact was the person who managed those consultants.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
I’m unaware of the selection process since the person who sought them out no longer works with us. I am aware, however, that we were looking for someone who was near our time zone.
How much have you invested with them?
We invested around €100,000 (approximately $114,000 USD).
What is the status of this engagement?
Our engagement ran from April 2021–January 2022.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I can’t provide any quantitative metrics, but qualitatively, the consultants from STX Next received really good feedback from our managers. The quality of their work and the timeliness of their delivery were on point.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
Their project management was also very good. Any issue that they encountered they resolved before it could reach me. They also managed their stand-in engineers well so that they could immediately fill in for someone who was not available. I did not have to worry about this at all as it was fully taken care of. It was all very ideal.
We met on a weekly basis, and they used whatever tools or application stacks were being used in the project they were embedded in.
What did you find most impressive about them?
STX Next was very productive and technically expert. Even though we’re already experts in the field, we were still surprised by how much we were able to learn from them. They have a really impressive workforce.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, I can’t think of anything.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
If you are looking for consultants with strong technical skills and the capability to deliver on time, I highly recommend working with STX Next. It is worth noting, too, that they’re better suited to technical projects than heavily corporate environments.
the project
Staff Augmentation for Data Analytics Company
"Their level of customer service is outstanding, and they go above and beyond with us."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m an executive at a data analytics company. We help insurance companies and hedge funds mitigate their risk and investment, so we have public data we pull to our processes.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We needed help with software development for our business.
What was the scope of their involvement?
STX Next helps us develop and maintain our products through a roadmap that we work towards — they provide an additional workforce to our team to work in all of the backend functionalities for these products using Python. We currently work on various projects; they’re also expanding our API to include other products and providing DevOps resources.
What is the team composition?
They’ve provided around ten members of their team, including Judith (Business Manager), who is my main point of contact.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
A member of our team used them for a previous project and decided to work with them on this task.
How much have you invested in them?
We invest around $42,000 a month with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in January 2015, and the engagement is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
They’ve been able to develop more than our in-house team exponentially — our development velocity has increased by at least four times. Also, they have broad and diverse skills, making it easy to work with them and rearrange the team dynamics to ensure that every project is staffed appropriately. In addition, they provide extensive risk assessments to our infrastructure — they’ve saved us a few times, and their contribution has been invaluable.
How did STX Nextperform from a project management standpoint?
Their project management has been great; we haven’t had any issues with deadlines and budgets. Also, communication has been fantastic, and I appreciate that. We have daily stand-up meetings, and they provide monthly reports on the things they’re addressing.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their leadership team cares a lot about us — their level of customer service is outstanding, and they go above and beyond with us. Also, they’re very proactive and work with us to solve problems.
Are there any areas they could improve?
I don’t think there’s anything they can improve on.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I recommend working with them! Also, do as much forethought and project planning before bringing them in — getting ahead of any documentation in advance would be beneficial.
the project
Staff Augmentation for Government Software Development Co
"Their software development process is good, and they deliver high-quality code."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the director of engineering of the organization. We create software for federal, state, and local governments in the UK and the US.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We used STX Next to get development resources. We needed developers to work on new projects and re-implement parts of the product in Python.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Currently, STX Next is helping us with two product lines and working on new components and reporting solutions. Also, they’re working with our team on an application that does short-term rental monitoring in the US, like Airbnb.
Overall, they just act as additional resources for our projects. However, there have been projects where our product team gives them requirements, and they go over them and build the solution for us. The team predominantly does development and testing, but they’ve done a bit of design work. The product owner helps to define the requirements.
What is the team composition?
At the moment, we work with about 15 people. It goes up and down based on the project. We have a product owner, who is like a product manager. Also, there’s a SCRUM master, many Python developers, and a few QA testers.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
The engagement started before we acquired the company. We kept them because we were happy with their work. STX Next had good quality, and they were reliable and professional.
How much have you invested with them?
In the first year, we spent about £150,000–£160,000 (approximately $204,000–$217,000 USD) per month. Since the latter half of 2020, we’ve paid about £80,000–£90,000 (approximately $109,000–122,000 USD), and next year it’ll be around £50,000 (approximately $68,000 USD) per month.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in August 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We’ve received great feedback from the customers on the quality of their work. In particular, they’ve recently returned a reporting project, and the end clients are pleased.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
We typically do project management. We have meetings with the developers at least once a week, and we use Teams.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They specialize in Python, so they have great Python developers. Also, their software development process is good, and they deliver high-quality code.
Are there any areas they could improve?
There have been times when we needed new resources, but they weren’t able to supply them. They’re limited in certain areas, so they have to go and find external people, which takes a long time.
Also, there are a bit expensive in other areas. Their prices go up significantly from year to year, even more than inflation. It’s difficult to budget for future years.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Have a clear ownership structure and set clear expectations on what they’ll do. They’ve been a complement to our team, but you could also outsource them into projects. They’d do a good job.
the project
Figma Design & Branding for Learning Platform Startup
“I was impressed with how well everything worked.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the founder of a startup platform geared at making learning easy and fun.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
I needed help with design and branding.
What was the scope of their involvement?
I started out with some specs of what I wanted to design. I reached out to figure out how much it would cost using Figma. Once we settled on a price, they kicked off the design.
What is the team composition?
We work with their head of design, a product owner, and a couple of designers.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
In worked with them on a previous development-heavy project. I sat in on some good meetings about their design services. I had a good impression of them and the way they work.
How much have you invested with them?
I spent €6,000 (approximately $7,000 USD).
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in June 2021, and we wrapped up in August 2021.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I’m really happy with the designs. All of my project manager friends are super impressed with the website.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
Project management was lowkey. We had a Slack channel where we could share information.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their adaptability and their willingness to challenge ideas stands out. It makes them a much more powerful partner.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, it all went extremely smoothly. I was impressed with how well everything worked.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
They have a very robust way of thinking. Trust them and things will go well.
This review was published on February 19, 2019
Project summary
STX Next is helping rebuild a SaaS platform in JavaScript and PHP into a microservice architecture in Python and AWS. They remade a form renderer and a dashboard tool. They’re also improving the overall UI/UX.
Feedback summary
Several new features have yet to launch, but STX Next has delivered high-quality code on time and at outstanding value. Their presence has helped bolster internal knowledge of Python and agile methodology. Customers can expect a diligent, flexible team that grasps requirements quickly.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the head of product development at Firmstep. We offer a SaaS platform to help local governments and public sector organizations provide excellent service to citizens as efficiently as possible.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
Our platform was a monolith built in PHP and JavaScript. It became increasingly difficult to maintain as we added more features and products. It also lacked full documentation, meaning that knowledge was lost through regular staff turnover.
We decided to move to a microservice modular architecture platform using Python and AWS services. We brought in STX Next as development partners to assist our internal team and lead the rebuilding process.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
Our platform offers a form builder and form renderer. Once a user builds out a form, they can customize how it displays through the form renderer. The renderer had become buggy and difficult to maintain. STX Next rebuilt the tool to address its root issues. They also redesigned it to automatically comply with the government design principles established by the Government Digital Service. This update makes it more straightforward for customers to abide by their industry’s design standards.
STX Next also revamped a workflow management tool used by councilors to organize their caseload. They improved its performance to better accommodate the tool’s current level of demand. They also added filtering options, more powerful search functions, and flexibility in the user’s viewing experience.
The team helped us update our self-service portals and widgets as well. They’re also working to improve the platform’s overall user experience, decreasing page load and render times while implementing a more consistent and visually appealing design.
What is the team composition?
Our initial team comprised ten people: a product owner, a manual tester, and eight frontend developers, backend developers, and full-stack developers. We’ve added another two teams over the last few months and started working with a scrum master to help manage each team’s processes.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
Our CTO found their team through online research. STX Next had also worked with a mutual colleague, which further convinced us that they were the right fit for this project.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in September 2018, and the project is ongoing.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Given the scale of the rebuilds, several features have yet to be released to customers. However, our pull requests in our code repositories have increased tenfold, which we’re happy to see. Working with STX Next has also taught our internal team about agile processes, Python, and new technologies. They’ve shown us better DevOps practices and how to deploy our code more safely.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
We lacked experience working with outsourced teams. STX Next helped guide us through the initial process where we learned our ideal workflows to maximize productivity. They’re excellent at understanding requirements and delegating tasks appropriately. We never feel the need to micromanage their work.
We communicate through Slack and host weekly standups on Google Hangouts. When we need to update requirements, we either use a Google Doc or a phone call. STX Next manages tasks and progress through Jira. They’re highly independent and self-sufficient, and they always keep us up to date on the project’s status.
What did you find most impressive about them?
STX Next has adapted well to our organization, our goals, and our management styles. They’re also deeply engaged with our product and platform. Even without having direct experience working with UK local governments, the team still produced excellent user story maps and user personas for each product. They also often suggested ways to improve the user experience and make the outcome more successful.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Since these were new technology stacks for us, we hadn’t thought about deployment in the earlier stages. This lack of planning caused miscommunication later on about the exact scale of the project’s scope. We eventually resolved the issues though.
Any advice for potential customers?
Trust in their process. Give the team a degree of freedom to expand on the original requirements and make adjustments. If STX Next had stuck to our exact list of specifications, we would have wound up with a lower quality product. They’re very experienced developers with a solid understanding of UI/UX principles.
Overall rating 5
Quality 5
Cost 5
Schedule 4
Willing to refer 5
the project
Frontend Development for Data Consulting Business
"They are really good communicators with a proactive attitude."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I am the head of technology at a data consultancy called Anmut Consulting. We are based in London and we have been in existence since 2018. We mainly work with clients to look at the condition of their data. We are mainly focused on data, and what that means is that we work with clients and deep dive into their data. We try and help them get a good understanding of the condition of their data and identify the key areas of data that are assets for them. Once we identify them, we put a number on them and help them prioritize different projects, and show them how they can make the best use of that data they have in their system.
We have consultants in the company as well as technologists which is where I fit in especially on the software side of things.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
The biggest challenge was that we didn’t have the talent for frontend development. We had a small backend team, but no frontend team. We were looking at the market and were looking to try and hire internally, but the timelines were too strict, and we had to get someone in as soon as possible.
What was the scope of their involvement?
We worked with STX Next to build a platform so that our consultants can do their job in an easier and more orchestrated way. We had a lot of conversations around UX and UI, and they asked questions about other projects that we were working on. They provided a lot of stuff pro bono which was really good, but the main stuff that they provided to us was building out that frontend for us.
They took the designs that we created and created the frontend out of those. We asked them what tech stack they thought would be best for the frontend and they recommended React and TypeScript and they went with SCSS for the stylesheet. We went with all of their recommendations and so far it has been working pretty well.
They talked to us about how we could potentially improve our UX and UI, so they gave some very preliminary pointers with the aim that they could fix those things for us. We aren’t quite in a position right now to take them up on their offer yet, but it is something we intend on doing in the next few months with them.
There is another team, completely separate from my team, that was creating a tool that links into Power BI. That team asked STX Next for some advice and input. They didn’t do any actual work, but they advised them on potential things that we could do.
What is the team composition?
Technically, there were two people but then they split their time. We had one developer doing the main coding 70% of the time, and the other developer about 30% of the time. That developer verified everything that the first developer did and read over the code just to make sure that everything was good quality. The reason we did that was that we wanted a more senior person to review the code before it was pushed in.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
I had worked with STX Next in the past at my previous company. We had a similar situation where we wanted to deliver quite a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. The CTO at the time just brought on STX Next.
Once they were onboarded, they were really easy to work with, very competent, and very good at what they did. That left a really good impression when I was working with them there.
When I left that company and came here to Anmut, I realized we needed some help and I thought back to how good STX Next was when I worked with them in the past, so I recommended them to my boss, and we went on from there.
How much have you invested in them?
We invested around £15,000–£20,000 GBP (approximately $20,000–$28,000 USD).
What is the status of this engagement?
We started a conversation with them before Christmas 2020, and we talked to them for quite a while until we had someone from STX Next actually working with us in February 2021 doing the coding. We finished the MVP in April 2020, and we will be working with them soon on other projects.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The tool they helped us create is an internal tool and it is the frontend, so we don’t really have any metrics for that. We have UAT testers that are working on stuff right now. My personal feedback is that I am very happy with the front-end work that they have provided.
The feedback that we have received from our CEO is very, very positive and he is really happy with the system as a whole and also happy with the work that STX had done, and it is the same from my CTO. It is still an MVP, so it isn’t perfect, but they are very happy with the first round of frontend. Overall, very positive feedback from the whole company.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
I was in charge of managing the project and making sure that we were on target. In terms of the day-to-day of what the developer was working on, I was managing that with my team as well. We have the usual scrum meetings and agile ceremonies and things like that.
What did you find most impressive about them?
STX Next was really easy to work with. They are really good communicators with a proactive attitude. They always respond to messages, and I am talking about the company as a whole, not just the people we worked with. They are very good on that side of things.
The reason I was very confident in recommending them was that I know from past experience that the quality of work and the code they produce is good, and they are quick. I had no fears about that and that was the main thing.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, everything was great. The developer himself was really good. He wasn’t a super, super senior guy so he could improve his communication skills, but overall, he was 99% good. There were some small things with communication that I maybe would have asked him to improve on if he was working with my team long-term, but definitely nothing massively negative at all.
Overall, it was very positive with him in particular and also speaking to account managers and more senior people at STX.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
I definitely recommend them. Have an idea of what you want them to do. Come to them with ideas and bounce those ideas off them. It is a better use of time to at least have some design you can hand over to them and then they can turn that into a frontend if that is what they are working on. If they are working on something else, like the backend, it is always best to come prepared and give them at least some direction they can take which improves a lot of things.
With the frontend guy that joined us, he, in particular, liked that on his first day, he was ready to go. We had everything set up for him and we knew exactly what he would be working on for the first sprint and there were no delays. He really appreciated that. I would recommend just prepare things for the first day you work with them, get their environments ready and their access all sorted out so that you aren’t wasting time.
the project
Custom Software Dev for Shipping Service Provider
"We have a pretty good relationship with them."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CTO of a shipping services provider. We’re a SaaS product that facilitates the generation of shipping labels, tracking, and return for e-commerce.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We were experiencing rapid growth in our organization and were looking for different ways of scaling our development team.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Our company integrates with carriers, logistics service providers, and on the other side, with e-commerce systems and online stores. We required additional development capacity on integrating new logistic service providers. They’re responsible for building and integrating those logistic service providers into our product.
Our internal development team is responsible for the operational side of things. We provided them with some tools and interfaces so they can work dependent on our development team. That allowed us to scale up their team and make sure they’re working efficiently as well.
What is the team composition?
We initially started with a two-person development team on their side to help with this, and it’s now been expanded to a team of six developers and one product owner.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
The team reached out to us about two years ago. They visited us in the office, and it was an enjoyable talk. Based on an initial exploration together with them, we started on a trial project, which was successful. We then continued our collaboration.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve invested between $50,000–$100,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
Our ongoing engagement with STX Next started in April 2020.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We keep track of new business and revenue, especially new business that we can onboard into our product based on logistic service providers that they integrated into our product. We’re satisfied with their work.
We have a pretty good relationship with them. The quality of work they deliver is of a high standard.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
Initially, the project management part was on our side. It wasn’t until two months ago where we got a dedicated project manager. We have weekly checkups with their delivery managers, and our account manager also participated in those calls.
Since we’re happy and they’re performing well, there’s no real need to deep dive into their actual performance numbers.
What did you find most impressive about them?
The engineering culture that they have closely fitted how we run and build software. It allowed them to be quite well integrated with our own development teams. They provide highly skilled developers and focus on other things like communication and making sure there’s a delivery manager there to make sure that the team is actually performing. It raised the bar to make sure they’re delivering work fast with high quality.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, we’re quite satisfied with their services.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Get a good relationship with their developers. They are highly skilled. If your team works with them, make sure that the engineers get together and iterate over some ideas. They’re engaged and want to provide shared knowledge rather than just building things.
the project
Java Script & Python Dev for Marketing Platform
"With STX Next, you can count on them to have the expertise you need."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the global product and engineering director at Hogarth Worldwide.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We have our own digital asset management (DAM) system, which we built a long time ago. We had to maintain it and evolve it into new versions. We needed staff augmentation to help us.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They provided software development services and QA engineers to implement the requirements we gave them during the automatic quality process control. We use JavaScript, React, and Python. We have our own team that is responsible for deploying the software into production and maintaining the environment.
We follow a scrum methodology. We work with them to refine those requirements. They give us the team that is allocated to us. Then they go into sprints. From there, they deliver the completed feature. We pick a chunk every two weeks.
What is the team composition?
There are 11 people and soon to be 12. There’s a delivery manager that handles the account.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
I wasn’t at the company when we hired STX Next, but I think it was from a contact that was here before me.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in July 2013 and the work is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Since I joined, we went through a little bit of a reformation, and now we’re working in a way that’s much more focused on the cadence of delivering constant features and value to our stakeholders and product. We’re working towards the completion, the achievements of each sprint has its own goal.
Every sprint we achieve or don’t. Every two weeks, it’s either a yes or no, and then we then decide if we need to improve anything or not.
We’re also emphasizing the happiness of the STX Next team, making sure they’re happy and working well alongside our team. If the team is happy, we can throw all these different changes of pace and the way we need to react to the business while keeping the morale high. That has improved significantly in the last few months, and now everybody on the team is saying they’re happy working with the rest of the team. They’re feeling accomplished.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
We manage the project on our side. They give us technical expertise. They have to manage their own tasks and be self-organized and assign the tasks internally. STX Next is very good at that but there’s no function of project management. It’s more about having team unity, and they achieve that.
What did you find most impressive about them?
It’s good when we aim for a partnership and they are as committed to delivering as we are. If you approach it as a vendor/client relationship, it’s a different kind of relationship. We’re all committed as a single group. There are no borders between STX Next and us in terms of who we’re working with. We all work as a single team.
Are there any areas they could improve?
We had communication issues in the past and issues of motivation but we worked through them in 2020. We’re in a much better place. We now have the relationship we always wanted to have. If we ever end the relationship, it won’t be because of the way we work together. It’d be for financial reasons or we discontinue the project.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
If you’re in the market for a partner in Poland, they’re good. They take care of their people. Their expertise in Python and JavaScript is good. They’re solid. They stay there for a long time and develop their own people.
With STX Next, you can count on them to have the expertise you need. If you’re looking for a reasonably priced, Europe based, nearshoring or offshoring outpost, they could be a good option.
the project
Python Dev Resources for Software Consultancy
“They were quite competent in Python and had excellent technical skills.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the transformation director for an independent software consultancy. We undertake all aspects of consultancy, from management consulting to bespoke systems development and support. Typically, we build online services for governments in the UK and Australia.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We were working with a government organization in the UK to build a system for registering child minders and early years care provision.
What was the scope of their involvement?
They provided development services. We were building a web-facing service for people to register childminders, and what STX Next did was support us with additional Python development capacity.
We ran scrum agile. We had a Jira board and worked in sprints, with a scrum master and a product owner. STX’s developers picked up bill tickets, so they worked alongside our own development team and provided additional bandwidth.
What is the team composition?
We mainly worked with developers, but we also had an account manager, Marta (Recruitment & EB Specialist). That was a useful way of making sure the service was to the quality and need that we had.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
My colleagues found them through an online search for nearshore developers. We visited their facility and decided to do a trial engagement with them.
What is the status of this engagement?
We worked together from February–December 2019.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We measured success and quality using the Agile process. The work was essentially packaged up as epics, stories, and tickets within Jira, and we adopted definitions of ready to ensure stories were properly defined. We did a lot of that and consulted STX's developers in certain cases.
They then took those stories forward and supported acceptance by the product owner to meet the definition of done. If there were any quality issues, they resolved them. The remit was to gain acceptance of the stories they’d taken from the product owner. More broadly, they contributed to bringing together a government UK service that is now live. Their part was a valuable and important contribution to the work. We were happy with their performance and have contracted them for another engagement. I suppose that tells its own story about how well the partnership was.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
They did perfectly well; they were no big issues. They were flexible in a dynamic environment that had frequent changes.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They were quite competent in Python and had excellent technical skills. They delivered what they promised to a good depth and level. We were very happy with them.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, I don’t think so.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Clearly define the scope of work you want them to undertake. Try to keep the pipeline flowing.
the project
Discovery Workshop & UX Design for B2B Media Firm
“The level of expertise that they have available due to the size of their firm was astounding.”
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the COO of Brief Media. We’re a media STX Next in the B2B space. We create product for veterinarians that are clinical reference tools We have media brands as well as subscription-based digital products.
What challenge were you trying to address with STX Next?
We’re launching a new product early next year, and especially with COVID-19, we wanted to take a different approach to how we thought we were going to launch the new product and look more closely to opportunities to leverage our existing subscriber base.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Essentially, they did a discovery workshop and concept design. We already have an idea of what we want our new product to be, but they challenged our ideas and assumptions for features and UX.
We came away with eight deliverables, helping us leverage their expertise from a business perspective. We came away with requirements, a road map, recommendations on the system architecture, concept design, and prototype. Then they gave us an estimate for team composition needed to develop the platform.
This helped with product management. They also assessed how we could balance our business interests with providing the most value to the end-user subscriber.
What is the team composition?
We did most of our work with two people. One was representing the business and product aspect. Then we had another on the UX experience side and user journey. We also worked with a third who spent their time digging into the technical requirements.
How did you come to work with STX Next?
We originally heard about them from a technology consultant that we’ve worked with in the past. We had STX Next actually quote a different project awhile ago. Then, as we got more into our new product development, we had additional conversations with them in order to learn what they offered. After hearing about this discovery workshop, we decided to bring them on.
How much have you invested with them?
The discovery workshop was about $15,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
The discovery workshop began in June 2020 and wrapped up in July. We recently started development with them, which is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
They presented new ideas to help us leverage our additional subscriber base and upsell them this new product. They took the ideas we had and were able to expand on that. I think we will have an easier launch as a result.
How did STX Next perform from a project management standpoint?
Their communication was very thorough. From the proposal they provided, we knew the phases of the process would be. That included dates and which members from our team needed to participate with each session. We also had a good idea what the expected deliverables and outcome would be.
Whenever there were changes to the plan, it was because we covered more than expected in each session or because we needed more time in certain areas based on the results of the project. Overall, it turned our pretty well.
For the most part, we used email for this project. They also had Miro, which was a really helpful collaboration tool that made it easy to visualize what we were discussing and collaborate in real-time.
What did you find most impressive about them?
The level of expertise that they have available due to the size of their firm was astounding. As a result, we had access to experts in areas that we don’t have on our internal team.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No, the process was pretty smooth. The only hiccup we had was coordinating meetings because we were in different time zones.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
We had a very collaborative relationship with them, so I would tell future clients to view them as a partner and share as much information with them as they can.
The client's product is far better than before STX Next’s involvement, leading it to improved Google Play rates and a 99% crash-free rate on Google Analytics. The team is very experienced and transparent, and they act as part of the internal team, showing genuine interest in the project’s success.