Talentica Software

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Spinwheel Solutions, Inc. is based out of the Silicon Valley Bay area in California. We’re a technology product company operating in the financial services space. I’m a co-founder and the CTO of the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Talentica Software?

We’re building our core product with the Talentica Software team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Most of our product roadmap is being executed by Talentica Software. They represent most of our team. I only have two more people based in the US. Our product is an API platform that helps companies manage and pay loans. It connects to all the loan services out there, starting with student debt and expanding into credit cards and mortgages.

Any company can use the platform to manage and pay loans, and they can make it available to their end-users. The platform offers API connection and white-label drop-in modules, which partners can customize and embed into their own apps.

What is the team composition?

We have a team of 12 people on their side, and we’re working on a time and materials basis. We’re planning to increase that team significantly, to around 40 people.

They’re providing front- and backend developers, QA resources, one DevOps engineer, UI/UX designers, and an account manager. I’ve worked with Sanjoy (VP of Engineering) on strategic items. Less frequently, I’ve worked with their business development lead, mostly at the start of the engagement.

How did you come to work with Talentica Software?

I’ve been working with Talentica Software for the last five years, and Spinwheel is the fourth or fifth company that I’ve worked with them for. I initially found them at a conference in 2015, when I was doing my first startup. I met Manjusha (Co-Founder & CTO) and found that she had strong and deep expertise in the specialized needs I had. Their team stood out to me.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost so far is around $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project started in March 2020, and it’s ongoing. We’ll continue to enhance the product as we take it to the market. The current roadmap extends way into the next 2–3 years.

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

The quality of the platform being created is one indicator, in terms of how many issues we’re seeing in production and testing. Secondly, it’s their team’s ability to deliver on the required timelines. We have some technically challenging requirements, and the third measure is whether or not the team has been able to solve those.

Talentica Software has exceeded our expectations on all three fronts. They’ve met quality and technology challenges and make sure they’re always delivering on time. They’re always available, and the dedication is there. I’ve worked with development companies from all over the world — India, Poland, Australia, and the UK — and Talentica Software’s team is much better than all the others I’ve worked with.

We’re a fast-growing company, and we need the ability to ramp up the team quickly, according to our needs. We’re expanding a team of 10–12 to 40–50 people, and that’s been going a bit slow. Other than that, Talentica Software has been fantastic.

We’ve had multiple tight timelines related to our customers, and Talentica Software’s team has put in a lot of hours. They’ve made themselves available over the weekend to make sure we delivered on time. That’s given us the confidence that, if they make a commitment, they’ll try their best to keep it.

We’ve had some technical challenges with security and API integration, but the team has risen up to those challenges and made most of those integrations feasible.

How did Talentica Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We’re still a small team, so I’m involved in the day-to-day activities. We haven’t had any significant challenges. They react and respond well if I need anything, and they manage the team according to our expectations.

Most of the communication between the US and the offshore team is through a Slack channel. We have one-and-a-half to two-hour video conferences with the entire team every morning. Between those two, I believe we’re able to communicate effectively.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive part to me is the quality of their team. All their engineers and developers are above average. They have the skillset to do the job and are able to solve diverse and difficult technology issues. They meet their commitments.

Are there any areas they could improve?

One of the challenges we’ve had relates to supporting the rapid growth of the team. Finding appropriate resources can take a long time. If Talentica Software is going to work with other startups, it’d be beneficial if they could align with that growth.

Secondly, their entire team is based offshore and their working model is to take up the entire engineering function of the client company. Working offshore can make things very difficult because all our customers are in the US. It can be difficult to support them and work on integration challenges, from a time zone perspective. It would be helpful if Talentica Software had a support function that could be made available in different time zones.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’ve referred many of my colleagues and friends to them. If the client is in a different time zone, they need to make sure that there’s a good process in place to support customers. If the client is experiencing rapid growth, they need to work with Talentica Software to make sure that they understand what the expectations are.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of Regology, an AI driven regulatory compliance platform

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

Brought on board Talentica after graduating from YCombinator during the Summer of 2018. I was looking at an offshore partner who can help accelerate the product engineering. It started off as a small engagement where a developer resource was expected to codevelop with the CTO. Soon Talentica is entrusted with the overall engineering, DevOps, and UX responsibilities.

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

I have received quite a few emails about offshore services from various companies. However, I was looking for a company that has the experience of working with younger startups, as their needs a very different. Initially, I was skeptical about involving an offshore company due to timezone and coordination constraints. To test the waters, I worked with a developer for a month on a paid trial basis and I started feeling good about the quality of the code from the developer.

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

Scope of the work includes building the first versions of the product (Frontend and backend). Technologies used: Express, Angular, Python, Scikit, and React.

Here are some sample deliverables:

1. Build product features and major components in angular js and python
2. Deployment scripts for AWS DevOps operation (Ansible and Terraform)
3. Define UX mocks for the product features and overall UX harmonization
4. Build data science algorithms with measurable outcomes I am very satisfied with the outcomes so far.

In the beginning, we were having a daily scrum. Soon, I reduced the frequency to thrice a week. The team would do the following:

1. Review and estimate the sprint backlog
2. Provide key architectural decisions
3. Implement the development item QA based out of India and the US would do the testing and coordinate with the engineering team.

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

Started off with a developer and scaled up the team to 7 engineering resources.

• 1 Architect 
• 4 developers
• 1 Data scientist
• 1 UX
• 1 DevOps

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

As a young startup, I found hiring great talent as one of the most difficult things. Talentica sourced its engineers from some of the best universities and they came on-board in no time.

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

Team uses JIRA for scrum and bug tracking and Confluence for documentation. Communication happened over email, zoom, and slack. I used to visit Pune once every 6-9 months to network with the team (PreCovid).

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

Being helped many bay area startups, they had experience in a wide range of technologies and processes. This cross-pollination helped us shorten the learning curve when trying out new technologies.

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

The only service that I couldn't find at Talentica was end-user product documentation. I hope they offer this service soon.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Founder, FinTech

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

Goal was to develop a US-based FinTech App (incl. website, iOS App, Android App).

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

Was referred to Talentica by a friend. Independently evaluated them by visiting their office in Pune (India) and meeting their leadership team. Prior to Talentica, we had 2 bad experiences in working with outsourced software development agencies, so knew exactly what we wanted and did not want in a technology partner. Talentica gave us an initial trial period, which allowed us to work with the team on a short 3 month project. We were blown away by the capability and delivery of the team, and decided to onboard them on a multi-year engagement.

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

Talentica helped us develop a US-based FinTech application, and related marketing site. We're now working with them on scoping out the iOS and Android App.

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

1 Project Manager. 1 Technical Lead. 4 Full Stack Developers. 2 QA. 2 UI. 2 UX.

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

In less than 12 months, the team developed a FinTech application. Our marketing site gets over 50,000 visitors each month. We served over 500 clients, and are growing at a 10% rate month-over-month.

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

We used Slack, Zoom, Jira and Github for project management. We setup regular weekly check-ins (twice a week) to discuss functional requirements, and provide feedback on technical build. We designed 2 week sprints, and scheduled planned build items during those sprints.

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

Team is extremely professional. They have a high-level of energy and enthusiasm. They are aligned with our mission, and passionate about building a FinTech application. The team was also very communicative, and easy to work with during the project.

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

Retention on the team has been a little bit of challenge. With the India tech industry booming, it's been difficult to retain a consistent outsourced / contract-based team, as traditional retention strategies (e.g. offering stock options to employees, or corporate benefits / perks) don't exist. The Talentica leadership team recognizes the challenge, and is has been all ears, and in trying to help find a solution.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a data security and governance solutions provider in the US.  

What challenge were you trying to address with Talentica Software?

We were having some challenges with the SaaS product. We needed a company to help us develop custom software, so we brought in Talentica.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The project involves multiple phases. We started with an MVP then expanded into core product development. We provide the design of the solution, while Talentica oversees the architecture and development of our solution stack. The team conducts tests and ensures that everything adheres to industry standards as they continue to enhance our core product’s features. We mainly use Python and AWS. 

What is the team composition?

We work with 3–8 people, depending on the scope of work. There are back- and frontend software engineers as well as an architect, a project lead, a QA specialist, an accounts manager, and a DevOps engineer.

How did you come to work with Talentica Software?

They were referred by a friend of mine who had used their services in the past.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2019, and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

We’ve been able to turn our ideas into a viable solution. Talentica has been very helpful from the beginning up to the market stage.

How did Talentica Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They exceeded the budget, but they were able to offset some of the related challenges. They performed above our expectations. 

We use Jira and communicate via Slack and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Talentica is attentive to details and comes up with good ideas for the solution.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing they could improve is their resource onboarding time. It usually takes 6-10 weeks, and shortening that time would be very helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have regular cadence with Talentica and be upfront with your expectations. Also, make sure your technology stack matches your product vision.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CarBevy is a startup focused on creating a better buying experience for car buyers. Thru our marketplace, we allow users to find cars locally, provide price insight and transparency and allow users to negotiate on the car without visiting the dealership. I lead the Product and Strategy at CarBevy.

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

The project was to create a double-sided marketplace for car buyers. The goal was to have the MVP ready for rollout; which was completed successfully.

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

We were looking to partner with a firm that fitted 4 core criteria, and Talentica exceeded all our criteria.

1. Previously provided services for the early-stage marketplace.
2. Experienced in creating a double-sided marketplace.
3. Skills
4. Cost

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

Scope:

1. Create a prototype
2. Set up dev/test/prod environment in AWS
3. Payment integration

Develop and test platform Key Deliverables:

1. Prototype
2. Set up the environment/integrations/ infrastructure

Complete Product development Tech used:

1. JS reach
2. PreGre SQL

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

We had a team of 5 developers. The tech lead was Abhinandan Bansal, who was the key point for our contacts. The other core dev members included; Siva Krishan; Maitri Dalal, Vikas Sahu; Vinil Pansare.

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

1. The product was completed on time and within the budget.
2. The team was extraordinary in their approach to understand the business context and suggest scalable design solutions.

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

We had a team meeting 3 times a week to discuss the progress and blockers. As goes for a most early-stage startup; most communication was thru email, and tracking was via Jira.

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

The most impressive thing about Talentica Software was the team, their tech skills; their ability to understand the business context, their ownership mentality to challenge our assumptions and approach; and be able to implement a solution at speed.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Using more collaborative tools would be helpful.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an engineering manager for a large software development company focused on the enterprise technology market.

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

Our company uses Talentica engineers both to complement in-house development teams on certain projects, and to own engineering responsibilities on certain projects end-to-end.

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

Leadership in our company had a pre-existing relationship and positive past experiences with Talentica.

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

We trust Talentica to provide high-quality engineering talent across a wide array of technologies, including backend, web, and mobile (iOS and Android) platforms.

When Talentica engineers are embedded in cross-functional teams, they play a role similar to what we would expect from an in-house engineer -- contributing to all parts of the project lifecycle. This includes working with Product Managers to narrow and polish project scope, to leading project implementation on a platform, to monitoring release success, and identifying potential issues post-deployment.

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

Within my team, I've worked with up to 15 Talentica team members at one time. Their positions include Backend, Web, iOS, and Android engineer. In addition, I have worked with the Engineering Manager, and QA leads.

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

Talentica teams have taken ownership of important aspects of our business, and built high quality improvements efficiently and independently.

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

Members of the team are typically hard working and adaptable. Feedback is heard and accounted for. I would most often communicate with the engineering manager. In my experience, Talentica team members are easy to communicate with, both verbally and in written form.

When timelines need to be adjusted, the need is raised promptly and without shying away from tough subjects. In the few cases where urgent issues or need to expedite development arose, the team was willing to put in the extra effort to accomplish a successful outcome.

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

Their team members are smart, hard-working, and humble. Over time, as our trust grew, we found increasing returns on our investment in onboarding and working with Talentica team members.

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

No areas for improvement.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Interlinkages is a Financial Technology company headquartered in Hong Kong with presence in South Asia. We create tech-based, specialised Fiancing solutions for Banks and Companies, targeted at Cross Border Trade Finance. I am the Cofounder of the company and incharge of New Product Development. 

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

We hired Talentica for creating a new Trade Finance Platform which included end to end processing of Trade finance assets and multiple modules for several parties involved. 

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

Talentica came very highly recommended from some of the their existing clients and after meeting various other prospective Tech partners, we decided to go with Talentica based on the following :

• Being a Non technical Founding team,  our main criteria was to find someone who can  help us in conceptualising a Tech product based on our Business vision and without asking for detailed BRD documents to start the project. We were looking for tech advisors and not just order takers. 
• Ability to work in a startup environment where things change constanly and accordingly product requires changes, without compromising on the speed to market 
• Talentica had a strong reputation for IP protection, which is very important when designing innovative products 
• Strong Team and project management skills 

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

The scope of work included conceptulising, designing, development and testing of the product from start to finish. Used React-Nodejs-Mongo stack and hosted on the AWS cloud.

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

The team included Project Manager, Team lead, QA and software developers in the core team and UI/UX/NLP/DevOps experts were brought in as required from time to time. 

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

The project started with a one week Discovery workshop to finalise the business requirements create a roadmap/workflow for the product. After that Agile model was used for project management including daily calls with the team and periodic demos.

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

Talentica team takes complete ownership of the product and never missed a delivery deadline with excellent project management. Also the problem solving skills and keenness to find a solution within limited resources is impressive and was very helpful for a startup like ours.

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

We are overall very satisfied with the delivery

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tala automates standards-based security to prevent data theft from client-side attacks. I am a Co-Founder and VP of Cloud Engg.

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

Software Development for our cloud based service and development of agents for various platforms.

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

We were referred to Talentica by one of our investors. Also, when we chatted with a couple of their existing clients, we got great feedback.

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

Talentica gets involved in design, prototyping, and product development. They help in the design and development of infrastructure, backend, and frontend components. They also provide a complete QA and verification along with ongoing support.

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

The team consisted of a project manager, a technical lead, developers, and QA. The size of the team varied over the course of engagement and has steadily been increasing.

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

Talentica has helped us create a great stable product and continues to provide great value as we add more capabilities and features. They have helped us scale our product as well. All this keeps our customers happy as well as sign up new ones.

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

The project manager and tech lead are very involved in the product features and roadmap and stay on top of the project needs. They are very efficient in breaking the tasks down and getting the right developers to do the task.

They also stay on top of each task until completion. Additionally, we follow an Agile model and have daily short productive scrum calls with the entire Talentica team.

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

I am very impressed with their work attitude and ethics. They will get the task done by the planned deadline. They are also very responsive in resolving critical issues in a timely manner.

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

I am very satisfied with the levels of service they provide.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a company that provides Risk Information Services and Early Warning Signals through a platform. Our clients include MNCs, Corporates, BFSI clients and Government Agencies

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

We hired Talentica to design and develop our first Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and then continue to enhance the platform features over time. Our goal was to have a comprehensive Risk Monitoring Platform that could serve our client's needs.

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

Talentica was referred to us by one of our investors. We had evaluated them with 2 other options. We decided to partner with Talentica because of the quality of their Technical Resources and their experimental outlook in using new tools and practices to solve technical problems.

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

1. Talentica studied the scope document that was provided and we had a workshop to identify the important go-to-market features required for MVP.
2. Project milestones were arrived at and we used agile methodologies for executing each milestone.
3. We used the React-Java-Mongo stack and have hosted our platform on the AWS cloud.

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

During the MVP 5-6 resources worked on the project which included, a Project Manager, a Team Leader, 3 developers, and a tester.

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

We could launch the product within 5 months as was envisaged. We delivered 8000 reports in Year 1 and around 25,000 in Year 2. We were able to launch 2 more revenue generating products on the platform at 8 months intervals

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

We have a weekly review meeting and also are present in daily stand-up calls. We communicate through-out the day using Slack. Bugs are reported in Jira.

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

Project Managers have hands-on programming knowledge because of which they can guide the team better. Programmers are open to learning new tools and assimilating them into the platform to solve technical issues.

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

Documentation. While technically competent, the knowledge transfer during attrition can be managed better.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Alphonso is a TV data company that provides analytics for advertisers. I am one of the founders of Alphonso.

For what projects/services did your company hire Talentica Software India Pvt. Ltd?

Software development for web applications.

What were your goals for this project?

Implement features for the companies web products and services, and manage test and releases processes.

How did you select this vendor?

Evaluation of multiple vendors through discussions, as well as based on word of mouth recommendations.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Talentica members participate in full stack software development for Alphonso, including front-end, back-end, and database design and development. Talentica also performs testing and release management activities.

What was the team composition?

The project team had a varying number of people over time, but for the majority time period consisted of about 8 members. The team included a project manager, a technical lead, and developers and testers. Talentica followed Alphonso's development processes, adding Agile-like project and task management to maintain on-schedule delivery.

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

Talentica's contributions have helped us build out multiple new products that are customer facing and had an impact on revenue growth.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

As mentioned above, we follow a two-tiered project management approach, with Alphonso driving requirements and high-level design, and the Talentica project manager and team lead acting as project lead in assigning, scheduling, and tracking tasks. It has been a fairly effective process and was efficient in terms of not tightly coupling those two stages of development activity.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They show consistent interest in understanding the products and their value to our customers. Focusing on those as the larger goals, as well as the timeliness and discipline of their development process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I do not have any suggestions here. We are more than satisfied with the work done by Talentica.