Sunscrapers

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a life science company who develops and manufactures innovative products that simulate the fluids inside the stomach. The uptake of our products and technology will help speed up drug development and reduce animal testing. We're based in London, U.K. and have customers all over the world. I am a co-founder.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sunscrapers ?

We hired Sunscrapers to build and maintain our website, for both the front and the back-end, and also to build some bespoke software for use within our business. And we try to continually evolve and improve our website.

What were your goals for this project?

In addition to having an aethetically-pleasing website, we also need rock-solid E-commerce functionality that has a great UX as well. And when we do encounter technical difficulties or bugs, we need these resolved as quickly as possible.

How did you select this vendor?

We have known one of the co-founders for many years and we elected to use his company's services when he started this business. We have kept on using his company's services for over 10 years since their inception, because we're happy with how they work and the quality of their work.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Sunscrapers have built our website and maintain its front and back-end functionality. We required a highly usable e-commerce website and some custom-made software applications to help with the running of our business.

We continuously add to or re-develop our website and software applications as our business evolves. Therefore we need a tech partner who is sufficiently agile to cope with our increasing demands.

What was the team composition?

The team composition from Sunscrapers is a project manager and a dedicated website coder.

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

We know from the moment we have gone live with either a new website or upgraded feature, whether or not it is working. Either a notable increase or decrease in customer feedback, will indicate how a particular project has gone.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

The project management is based around organising tasks into 2 week sprints and monitoring this process using Trello and Slack. At the end of each sprint there's a review with Sunscrapers and us about how these tasks have gone. Future tasks to be tackled are placed on a backlog board. We've found this to be a highly effective way of working.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Sunscrapers' way of working is highly methodical and organized. this makes the geographical distance between us and them not an issue. Furthermore, they are good communicators, so if there are any minor issues to resolve during a sprint, they can be resolved swiftly and painlessly.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Over the years we've worked with Sunscrapers, they've always given a lot of thought to how they work and have updated their methods accordingly. Their current sprint-based approach is undoubtedly very effective. Having said that, they are still receptive to customer feedback and suggestions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a professional development platform, and we create learning solutions for corporations who want to promote better team interaction. We conduct cross-cultural training to create inclusive environments for employees through our learning platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

We’ve always had a small development team that we needed to expand, so we specifically looked for someone who could help us with frontend and React development. I tried outsourcing development resources, but we weren’t happy with the results from it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunscrapers has assigned a dedicated developer to work with us full time. We brought them in and are really happy with their work. They provide us with management support on the site so that their developers can keep growing and learning in their roles.

We have this complex management system for all our resources and they support all of our frontend developments. They do maintenance work on the system aside from development work, and they contribute great ideas to provide effective solutions for our customers.

We’ve been so happy with the work that they’ve done that we’ve decided to bring in an additional backend developer. They feel like an in-house solution much more so than hiring from a third party so it’s been great.

What is the team composition?

We have a frontend developer and a backend developer, and we’re in the process of bringing in someone who can engage in full-stack development.

Our main point of contact is Kamil (COO), and we also have access to the CEO and CTO who I feel comfortable reaching out to whenever issues come up. But ultimately, our day to day contacts are the developers themselves.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

It was a referral from a long-term partner of ours who gave us advice over the years. They had a similar arrangement with Sunscrapers where they brought in a single developer for a project who ended up becoming a full-time employee for them.

That model wasn’t something I was familiar with, so when I heard about that and the level of talent that was coming from Sunscrapers, I was impressed. I reached out to them to just fill in for an in-house role left by someone from the company, but they ended up becoming permanent members of the team.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend approximately $300,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

The ongoing partnership started in June 2017.

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

It’s nothing formal — we measure them more by the velocity of their work. They’ve really worked efficiently and are able to deliver on our project goals very well. I can’t give you numbers or statistics but just the overall impression that I’m very pleased with what they’ve done.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

We have one challenge that’s not necessarily their fault. They’re based in Poland, and the rest of our team is in New York and Los Angeles. So, there have been some time overlap issues we’re hoping to resolve with the new hire we’re bringing in. 

But in terms of overall delivery, they’re working really well. We recently hired a project manager to oversee projects and she works very well with the Sunscraper team, along with our technical leads in the US. They communicate with us on Slack and through the project management system that we use.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would say the quality of the work and attention that we get from them. I’ve worked with lots of third-party development providers and firms, and we’ve never had the kind of engagement level we get from Sunscrapers with any of them.

Their development competency is much better than our experience in the past. I believe part of that comes from the investment they have in us.
Aside from that, the level of partnership that we have with them encourages greater quality in the work we can deliver.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really, the only issue that we’ve had is the overlap of time. They’ve done a good job taking on this new requirement presenting us with several great candidates who are going to work the extra hours for us. It’s not really something they could improve on, but it’s the only thing that comes to mind when thinking about the challenges of working with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say be really clear about the requirements for the work or role you’re hiring with them. Also, constant communication is really important. Don’t think of them as an outsourced team, think of them as being part of your internal team as this was an important part of what made this partnership successful.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a machine learning firm on a mission to give people their time back.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sunscrapers?

For one of our clients, we were rebuilding the user flow of a web application that eases preparing tax settlements. We were running short on time, so we asked Sunscrapers to help us boost the speed of development of the backend part of the project where the amount of work exceeded our capacity.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to rebuild the user flow, as that was essential for marketing strategy.

How did you select this vendor?

They were recommended in our community. In addition, other vendors couldn't provide us an experienced developer within such a short time frame.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

They helped with the development of a few critical features. They traced two bugs which otherwise would have presented serious issues. In addition, they helped to design the architecture of a new feature for one segment of customers.

What was the team composition?

They provided us with one experienced developer who joined a team of five.

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

We are building a long-term relationship with our customer, so every improvement in the process is very important for us. Their development assistance made a difference.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was solely on our shoulders. We had a single point of contact for requests from our side.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their flexibility allowed us to extend our team for a short period of time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I would expect more direct feedback from developers regarding work that is planned.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the COO of a software development consultancy.

For what projects/services did your company hire Sunscrapers?

We hired Sunscrapers to augment our team working on a long-term project for a strategic client.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal of the project was to deliver a comprehensive, critical web app.

How did you select this vendor?

Sunscrapers had a reputation for being a team of great Django developers.

Describe the project in detail.

The project primarily consisted of a Django backend and JavaScript frontend. They worked with our team on the development and utilized PostgreSQL databases and AWS to build the app.

What was the team composition?

They provided a senior Django developer for our project.

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

Sunscrapers achieved all of the milestones we set for them.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had an amazing workflow between our teams. They were great communicators and their developer perfectly fit in with us.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciated their development skills, technical prowess, and strong communication. They had a great attitude, as well.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There was nothing to be improved during our project.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a travel business running a social community platform for personal journies. I am the founder of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

We are a purely online business and needed to develop the idea from the ground up and create an MVP [minimum viable product]. We have no technical skills here so it was going to be necessary to find a partner. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunscrapers acted as a startup service for our company. We handled most of the skeleton work in terms of creating a business model, as well as the design. Sunscrapers helped us test our points and define the model further.

We worked with a designer from Sunscrapers' team who expanded my initial sketches. There were also different software engineers, mostly frontend and backend Python developers, brought in when we needed the services. Sunscrapers' team was efficiently resourced. We mainly interacted with their principal and our designer, but I could reach out to anyone else. I'm not a web developer by trade, so Sunscrapers' contact was helpful in acting as an intermediary in our conversations.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

I needed to find the right web developers for a slightly unusual idea. I researched companies through Google. Sunscrapers mentioned that they had a startup focus and the right business acumen for this. We had an initial contact and went from there.

How much have you invested with Sunscrapers?

The cost of Sunscrapers' services has been between £10,000 and £ 15,000 [US$12,000 and $18,000].

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunscrapers in August 2016. The relationship is ongoing, although it's been put on the backburner a few times. Sunscrapers leaves it to me to evaluate what needs to be done next.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Sunscrapers has been able to build a functional backend, almost beyond what I thought was possible. That in itself is a big achievement. The design is spot-on and perfectly linked to the actual functionalities of the site. I'm overall amazed at how close Sunscrapers' work is to my initial designs. I was expecting to hear "no" for the entire project run, but Sunscrapers found solutions, even though the work cost slightly more than I was anticipating.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

Sunscrapers uses Trello, Google Drive, and various other systems which have helped our collaboration. I can see everything being worked on using Trello, as well as a breakdown of the cost. I have the same access as Sunscrapers, so I can intervene when I need to. Someone in my team is actually a project manager by trade, and she has been using the same systems as Sunscrapers. That was quite comforting to know.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

What makes them stand out amongst others is that they can share a business vision, instead of simply selling a flat service. They've understood my need to pivot, get to the MVP stage, evaluate, test, and maintain that loop. Sunscrapers' principal has an entrepreneurial mind, so the whole company feeds from that.

Are there any areas Sunscrapers could improve?

Not particularly. Anyone working in the startup business will want to know about maximum costs outright. This is hard for a development team to estimate, but Sunscrapers could become more transparent about the process. Having looked at the end result, I should have understood that it would require more money, but I was trigger-happy in the beginning.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

15Five provides communication tools between employees and managers, for different-sized companies. We do this by asking employees questions on a weekly basis, which are used as feedback for managers. I'm one of the co-founders and the acting CTO of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

As our team grew, we've needed to hire additional people to help cope with increasing demand and a whole slew of priorities. We were looking for a very specific skill set, namely experience with Django/Python. This is what Sunscrapers specializes in, so it was easy to make a decision on them.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunscrapers was initially involved with technical support, solving the bugs we were logging in GitHub. It was the best way in which we could introduce Sunscrapers to our system and have the team gain knowledge fast. This was done for 3 months, during which Sunscrapers mainly interacted with our customer support team. After 1–2 months, Sunscrapers demonstrated that they'd learned our system and were able to navigate around issues. As a result, we also involved Sunscrapers in new feature development. Throughout this experience, Sunscrapers continued to help us with support issues, but the biggest benefit we've seen from them is developing new features.

All of the features built by Sunscrapers have been successful. I was surprised by the level of attention to detail shown by their team, and by how much Sunscrapers cared about our project and the product itself. Sunscrapers has come back with suggestions for alternative approaches, trying to make our product better and more successful.

Sunscrapers implemented a custom user dashboard that became popular with almost all of our customers. It allows people to give high-fives to co-workers in order to show appreciation for help given. Objectives was another feature built in part by Sunscrapers. It has also been a successful addition to our platform.

Sunscrapers assigned two resources to us. They've acted as our own developers, communicating with us directly. I only hear from Sunscrapers' owners when we receive invoices and during routine check-ups; otherwise, the communication is the same as with our full-time employees. This removes any third-party or man-in-the-middle miscommunications. Even though Sunscrapers is 6 hours ahead of us, they've been willing to stay in late from time to time for important conference calls.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

We interviewed around seven companies in total, each offering engineers with different skill sets. Some of them couldn't demonstrate their English proficiency, which made it difficult to demonstrate their Python skills.

One of my lead developers is from Poland. He found Sunscrapers at a Django conference in Warsaw, talked to them, and introduced me to the team. After a thorough interview with the developers, we felt that Sunscrapers would be the right fit for us. One of the reasons for picking Sunscrapers was that we were already working with a person in Sunscrapers, which made communication easier. Secondly, the team's level of English knowledge was very good, compared to some others we had used. Lastly, Sunscrapers demonstrated very good Django Python skills.

How much have you invested with Sunscrapers?

The cost of Sunscrapers services has been around $80,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunscrapers in June 2015. We're still working together.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Sunscrapers is a part of the team which is building new elements and fixing issues. It would probably be impossible for me to point out any stats which directly resulted from Sunscrapers' work, other than the features which they built exclusively. Those features make up our product, and they've contributed to its expansion, as well as to our ability to gain new customers.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication with Sunscrapers is frictionless and easy, even though the team is 6 hours ahead of our office. I've never had an issue getting in touch with Sunscrapers and clarifying requirements; they also reach out to us if something is not clear or if the team has improvement suggestions.

Sunscrapers puts in around 30 hours of work per week on average. Based on the weekly reports from Sunscrapers, I've seen that those hours are well spent. They are very efficient with their time, and I've never had a question regarding why so much attention was put into a specific part of the project. Sunscrapers is efficient, transparent, and provides exceptional communication, making ours an easy and successful partnership.

Our general communication happens on Slack, with daily check-ins discussing issues and anything else that doesn't require face time. Every week, we have a Zoom conference call with all developers. For specific sprint planning and ticket assignment, we use Trello. GitHub is also a big part of the work. We use it as our main repository for bug tracking and code review. Our requirements state that at least one other developer needs to review a full request, with 2 people being required for billing-related matters or changes in critical functionality. Sunscrapers' team is a part of that review process. They also take care of issues logged in GitHub.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

Something that definitely stands out is their knowledge and passion for Python/Django. I've talked to other groups which offered Python specialists, but Sunscrapers' developers were top-notch. They were also down-to-earth, despite being technically knowledgeable and smart. Sunscrapers' resources make it easy for the rest of our team to work with them.

The communication is easy, Sunscrapers has been flexible in meeting hours, and they generally seem to be happy with the product we're working on. It's important for us to know that Sunscrapers' team enjoys the work and that they want to be a part of our team.

Are there any areas Sunscrapers could improve?

Sunscrapers is one of the most expensive developers we're using, out of all the other teams. Based on the value we've gotten, it still makes sense to use Sunscrapers.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of a software-as-a-service provider that caters to law firms, delivering an online practice management solution. We operate in our home market in The Netherlands and abroad, in various European countries and elsewhere.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

We'd had some experience with Polish nearshore developers and were looking for a new team to help us grow our development team. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunscrapers has been involved in new feature development, maintenance, and bug fixes. We are continually improving our product; some of the features built by Sunscrapers include email billing and billing reminders. Sunscrapers also built an iOS app for time recording.

At the moment, we are working with 3 full-time developers from Sunscrapers, but the original team was made up of 2 resources. We work directly with them, but one of Sunscrapers' founders is also involved in team management. That direct involvement is important for us as it helps the long-term relationship.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

Sunscrapers was recommended to us by a previous partner. We considered other companies, but Sunscrapers was the first one we tested and we were happy with the results.

How much have you invested with Sunscrapers?

The cost of Sunscrapers' work has been around $200,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunscrapers at the beginning of 2015.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We have had a hard time finding developers in our niche, but Sunscrapers has a good team that helps us out. We are working on a continuous basis with the company and rely on Sunscrapers' overall expertise and their ability to provide quality programmers. Individuals can come and go, but Sunscrapers has developed a good business relationship with us. They're an extension of our own team, which is valuable to our company.

One of the developers working with Sunscrapers left 6 months ago, but this is normal for the industry. Sunscrapers replaced him right away, but it did involve a small learning curve for the new person. New developers usually get up to speed within a couple of weeks. It does help that Sunscrapers' founder remains involved in our work. Not only is he able to bring people up to speed, but he is also knowledgeable about our product. Currently, there's a lot of demand for programmers, so we are happy with Sunscrapers’ pool of engineers.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

Sunscrapers is a part of our team and Slack is our team communication tool. We've integrated them into a number of Agile tools for planning and version control.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

Sunscrapers' team maintains a personal relationship, which is important for this type of work. Programmers are not always the most sociable people and it's important that they're aware of what we're trying to communicate, especially in an offshore relationship. We have visited their office and Sunscrapers has also visited us. We've tried to set up the team in such a way that it is a part of our company.

For a company the size of Sunscrapers, it's unique that they try to keep relationships on a personal level. They invest in people and find quality programmers who don’t only care about being paid a lot. We are glad we found Sunscrapers as a partner.

Are there any areas Sunscrapers could improve?

Sunscrapers shouldn't generally let its programmers deal with customers on their own. Instead of assigning us a developer and letting us figure things out, the company should be aware of what's going on and how individuals are performing. Sunscrapers needs to stay involved with project management and HR components. We have tried different scenarios with them and this has definitely improved in the past period. They are more involved with the productivity and quality of their engineers.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Sunscrapers?

Clients always need to define their expectations, especially if there's distance between them and the development team. It's important to make sure that people understand what is being asked, instead of simply sending out ideas and wireframes over, then expecting the team to fully understand them. I've always preferred trying a partner relationship out for a few weeks, with a small task and at some kind of discounted rate. The provider needs to prove to the customer that they will be able to do the job.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director/ad manager at digital product agency. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

We had a hard time finding any talent in the United States and needed to keep the momentum moving on the product that we're building, which was a dynamic content management platform for display ads.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had one developer from Sunscrapers working on this project.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

I don't know how we first found them, but they were chosen because of their skill set. We were looking for a full stack developer who could do both Python and frontend code.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in summer 2016, and it is ongoing. We're getting closer to launch, and after that, we plan to continue the engagement, adding new pieces to the product and potentially doing another product.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The feedback that we've had from both the technical and business side has been terrific, which is why we continue to extend the relationship. We have committed to keeping the resource on for at least the remainder of the year, if not longer. In terms of productivity, they’re meeting all of our service standards in terms of how fast and how good the code is. We have a lot of regular reviews weekly of the code, and the quality is exactly where we want it to be for the work that we're doing.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything has been really outstanding. The communication, both written and verbal, has been fantastic. They follow test-driven development, so that's really fantastic. For the code reviews, a standard pull request gets made, and then our team will review it and provide feedback. Once everything looks good, we'll deploy it. Bugs, if they're small, can be fixed within a day; if it's larger, like a structural issue, that can take days or a week, but it's all fully in line with our expectations.

They're very available. We use Hangouts for doing video conferences every day for our stand ups, JIRA for ticket management, and Slack for asynchronous communication—they're just phenomenal at all that. There is a big time zone difference; the end of their day is the beginning of our day, but we've been able to think up with our team at a specific time with them and have had zero problems with communications, which is super effective in making progress.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

The biggest benefit of working with the person that we are currently is that they're not just implementing requirements as they’re laid out: they're bringing a lot of strategic thinking to it. The benefit of that is that it allows us to have less concrete requirements. We're able to spend less time building perfect wireframes and really detailed requirements, and we're able to work through problems with them. They do a lot of problem-solving at a strategic level, which means that they've done a good job in understanding the application and business needs and translating that into solutions that are brought to them really only half-thought-out, taking them all the way to code.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder of a web design agency based in London. We work with small businesses, creating their branding and web presence. In the latter case, we work with external companies in building web applications rather than building them ourselves. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

We needed to build a website for one of our own clients. We had been working with an SEO company and together we were building a custom PHP-based platform. However, we needed to move it to a more efficient technology to allow for future improvements, both from a usability and SEO standpoint. We went exploring what we could do with other technologies and other suppliers. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have worked with Sunscrapers on developing a Python website, an advanced platform that is a mixture of e-commerce and social media. The site is aimed at pet owners looking for alternatives to using pet hotels. With the platform, pet owners can find people who can look after their pets and apartments while they're away. The platform works through a monthly or yearly subscription, and it also has messaging functionalities. We worked with a 5-person team from Sunscrapers. Together, we rebuilt the backend of the platform from scratch using the client's technical specifications. The frontend remained as it was. They had no hand in that. 

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

I was familiar with Sunscrapers and approached them. We didn't have a specific requirement for the Python language, but, because they provided a competitive quote, we decided to work together. We considered 2–3 other companies.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunscrapers in the beginning of 2013. The project had a 3- to 4-month duration. Because we have changed our business model, we've started to concentrate on building and designing small websites using open-source technologies like WordPress and Magento. As such, we don't require a lot of custom work. If we ever have a Python platform to build in the future, I will definitely approach Sunscrapers.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The website was initially built using PHP so it lacked more advanced functionalities. Its performance speed was an issue and it was not a scalable solution. Our aim was to improve the user experience as well as to make administrators' lives easier. There was also an SEO factor to consider. All of these things have been improved, making for a more reliable and effective site experience.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

Sunscrapers delivered on time and within budget. We used Basecamp for our collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

An aspect I liked about them is that we were also able to speak directly with the developers themselves. I find this important when building a website; it ensures that nothing is lost in translation. Sunscrapers has made sure that the English level of each resource is near-perfect, making it easy for us to communicate. Sunscrapers' team was responsive in replying to emails.

Are there any areas Sunscrapers could improve?

None, at least based on my experience. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide broad software and analytics services, mostly for startup companies. We build web applications for companies looking to get their first product out of the door, or for bigger ones looking to build internal tools. I am the founder and president of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Sunscrapers?

I was working with a media company in New York City, helping them work through the transitioning of their vice president of engineering. While they were looking for a new person to take over, I was in charge of the internal tech team. We were supporting 2 main products but didn't have the technical resources for 1 of them. Since they were already putting considerable effort into searching for a permanent technical lead, it didn't really make sense to increase the burden for only one more resource. I made the call to outsource it and we began to look for a partner that could help us with these products. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sunscrapers assigned one of their developers to our work, embedding him into our team. He came in and did a fantastic job of following my guidance and adding value to the product. The solution is using Django Python, JavaScript, AngularJS, a PostgreSQL database and Elasticsearch. The deployment is done on Heroku. We are using Amazon Web Services S3 for asset deliveries. We have a small team, and there has been some attrition within it. Sunscrapers' resource is the only person working on the product at the time, handling all significant tasks.

How did you come to work with Sunscrapers?

I met one of the founders of Sunscrapers at PyCon in Montreal, in the spring of 2015. We started chatting and I realized that I wanted to have Sunscrapers in my Rolodex of partners. It was only a matter of the right project coming up from then. I considered 2 other options for the current project but chose Sunscrapers after looking at factors like expertise, price, and location. Sunscrapers had the best price, but they actually had the least convenient location. Our other options were in New York and Brazil, so they were closer to our time zone. We found a way to make the difference work, so it hasn't been a problem. The cultural fit was another issue; Sunscrapers was happy and enthusiastic to become embedded within our team. Other agencies had more resistance to adapting.

How much have you invested with Sunscrapers?

The cost of Sunscrapers' work has been $75,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Sunscrapers in February 2016. The engagement has been ongoing since then.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Our developer has been amazing. We've been able to accomplish all of our major milestones. Our product had some serious bugs. After tackling all of those, we increased test coverage, implementing automated testing for the first time for about 65% of cases. This was a major accomplishment in terms of improving general stability. We migrated the application from Python 2 to Python 3, which was a big maintenance win. We have reduced unneeded dependencies on old or irrelevant Python packages, cleaning up the stack on the backend.

We were introducing corporate accounts, which required a lot of backend work refactoring the existing code base. Sunscrapers' resource was very good at keeping the work on track.

How did Sunscrapers perform from a project management standpoint?

Sunscrapers' developer is one of the best I've worked with in this regard. We used Jira for sprint climbing and user stories, as well as GitHub for code reviews.

What did you find most impressive about Sunscrapers?

Sunscrapers is a very friendly and easy-to-work-with company. I never felt like I was fighting egos, which can be a reality in this industry. Sunscrapers was working with me, as opposed to working for me.

Are there any areas Sunscrapers could improve?

Sunscrapers is one of the best options when it comes to Python/Django, but I'd like to see them improve front-end technical capabilities.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Sunscrapers?

I recommend setting expectations as clearly as possible. The good news is that this is easy to do with Sunscrapers. They're also very flexible in either working on a project or retainer basis.