Team Work Spirit

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and president of a fundraising and crowdfunding website.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Team Work Spirit?

We hired them for web app development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Team Work Spirit has built our website and web app using React and Node js. They built the app for desktops, and it’s also responsive on iOS and Android. The app provides a centralized platform where users can sign up and start a fundraising campaign for whatever reason they made have. The site allows them to upload documents and pictures and link Youtube videos to give details about their campaign. Currently, the team is still providing web development and adding a blog to the site. 

What is the team composition?

Initially, I worked with Oleksandr (CEO) and a project manager. Once the project kicked off, we kept working with the project manager, plus designers, developers, a QA person, and one other teammate.

How did you come to work with Team Work Spirit?

I did Google and Upwork searches and didn’t know where to begin. I had spoken to a couple of other providers when I found Team Work Spirit. I reached out to them, they sent me an email, and I got on a call where they asked about the project. At the time, the Russian Invasion of Ukraine forced them to move people to a safe spot, delaying their reply. However, they got back to us two weeks later with a proposal.

The team came back with numbers and a step-by-step of what they would do and how. The proposal was very detailed with every step of the project, which stood out to me because other providers I spoke to were vague about the proposal and seemed too cheap. Ultimately, we chose Team Work Spirit.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $54,000–$56,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2022, and they launched the site in August 2022. Then, I requested other features, so our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Although we’ve just launched the platform, it already has a couple of campaigns without any advertising. Team Work Spirit sticks to timelines; they told me development would take four months, and everything’s been on point. 

How did Team Work Spirit perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management is 100% perfect. I have a dream team working on my project; our project manager made it his business to stay on that deadline. During development, he told us when requests would add more time and ensured we both carried out tasks and meetings to wrap up the project in the promised time. 

Our initial call was via Zoom. Once the project kicked off, we moved to Discord and Google Meet. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Team Work Spirit’s execution is impeccable, from the project management to the technical aspect. When they promise a deliverable by a certain time, they always have a working prototype to show me by that date. Their communication and project management is also outstanding. 

I feel comfortable working with them, especially considering I don’t have technical expertise in development. Therefore, I depend on them to be honest and straightforward throughout the process, and they’ve done that. The Team Work Spirit team has led me through the process, and I’ve learned along the way. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very clear about your project because the clearer you are, the more concise the timeline and budget expectations will be. With us, their pricing and execution have been on point. Make sure you come to the table with everything you’re looking for and every feature you want, and Team Work Spirit will give you exact numbers and dates.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of a SaaS software and cloud security company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

We have been working with Team Work Spirit for a long time. When we first approached the company, we were looking for a development firm that could help our team to augment our in-house development team and help to develop new features and expand our product offering.

SOLUTION

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

TWS took the time to really understand our project and goals. They have been able to effectively communicate with our team and help us deliver new product features and solutions.

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

We provided TWS with high level requirements for our project. Their company then looked at our Node.js and React application and worked with us to determine the best approach moving forward. The TWS team was able to breakdown requirements and goals into manageable work. Staff performed Node.js and React work in 2 week sprints, delivered code to QA and then tested features for release. At the end of release cycles we were able to deliver quality features to clients.

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

We have worked with several Full-stack Developers, Backend Developers, QA Engineers, and DevOps Engineers from TWS.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our team had run into some issues with not having enough internal development and QA capacity. We faced some issues with feature consistency. TWS was able to provide us an avenue for predictable software development and QA, which ultimately led us to more consistent software development and higher quality.

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

TWS has been able to effectively communicate and deliver. We have been able to frequently connect with development staff, stay up to date on project work in JIRA and ensure project goals are being met through JIRA, Slack and Email.

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

We're impressed with their ability to solve problems and really understand our needs while working on our project.

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

Nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the technical co-founder of a software company in the venture capital industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

We had concrete software designs which needed to be implemented in the frontend part of a distributed cloud software which handles equity investments.

SOLUTION

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

We received an intro from a valued colleague who is connected in Kharkiv region, Ukraine. At beginning of the project Team Work Spirit had a team of frontend engineers ready to go - this was a driving decision factor.

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

It was a an end-to-end frontend pre-designed in Figma. Majority language in the frontend is Typescript and React.

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

8; Medium and Senior Frontend Engineers, Infrastructure Engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

More than 1000 git commits.

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

The team fully integrated in our company operations and worked like employees. Basically it was an outstaying model. Our company fully managed the engineers and used industry tools like Gitlab, Slack and Notion.

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

High availability. Fast recovery operations if somebody was unavailable. Exceptional reliability in a political extreme situation in Ukraine. We are happy and proud to cooperate with such strong partners.

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

The quality of their work, their communication, and their team attitude are great! I had to think long about if there is something to improve. Only thing I could think about is a minor thing, which would be tiny more attention to detail in rare cases, when copy-writing definitions are missing from our side, that the could more signaled from the team side. I already communicated this to the team and they are already caring about it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Kizen is building the next generation SaaS business software platform. As Director of Engineering I lead several scrum teams of engineers building our product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

Team Work Spirit has become an integral part of our team, with members on several scrum teams, serving in several functions. We partnered with them initially for DevOps and frontend development, and have since grown the relationship to include quality engineering and project management as well. We have built out a fully functioning B2B SaaS application with them.

SOLUTION

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

TWS was recommended highly to us from a key business partner. The breadth of their expertise and project management capabilities was a key differentiator with other firms, as well as their ability to source and expand teams as needed.

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

For our front-end application, TWS engineers used ReactJS with hooks and redux to build out a reusable component-driven architecture. Code quality and consistency is highly valued, and engineers and leaders at TWS conduct code reviews and give feedback. We work in 2 week sprints, with value delivered in releases every sprint. In DevOps, TWS leveraged Kubernetes, Helm charts, Docker, and Jenkins among other technologies to automate our build and deployment CI system, all running on AWS.

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

Currently, there are 2 lead engineers who are also individual contributors, 3 senior engineers, and 1 QA engineer. In the past, as project needs have necessitated, we've employed a scrum master and additional QA as well. We look forward to expanding further in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We have a very high bar of success at Kizen. TWS engineers have helped us maintain high standards of code quality, product consistency, and platform stability. The TWS engineers consistently meet sprint goals of story completion, and communicate clearly when tasks will take longer than initially expected (with reasons for any delays). They are truly a partner in meeting our deliverable goals.

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

With high English proficiency, we leverage Slack for ad-hoc communication, and the team is responsive during and even beyond working hours. For instance, our DevOps admin has been on-call nearly 24/7 with great responsiveness. We also effectively leverage Jira for scrum/agile process.

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

I've been very impressed with how collaborative the Team Work Spirit team has been over the past year. They've always engaged as an embedded part of our team, and never as a separate entity with extra barriers to communication. The team has a good attitude and contributes to our culture in a positive way as well.

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

Initially the dev leads from TWS were hesitant to offer their suggestions for best practices for our codebase, but after some encouragement to take ownership, we've seen a marked improvement in this area.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the General Manager of House of Hearing

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

We developed our own custom CRM software that is cloud based and we reached out to Team Work Spirit to help us setup and manage the server side of the equation.

SOLUTION

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

We were looking for an experienced agency that had a good track record, and TWS fit the bill perfectly.

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

They helped us develop the server-side of the software using AWS and Kubernetes.

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

There were 3 people that worked with us from the TWS team, one QA person and two Devops specialists

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The biggest measurable was the succesful deployment of both staging and live servers.

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

The team was great in terms of timelines and all tasks were being managed on Teamwork.

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

What I liked the most was their professionalism and ability to meet deadlines.

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

I have no critique in regards to ways to improve.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

A web3 based online gaming platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

Needed a production grade MVP delivered in a couple of months. The TWS team was able to deliver on time within the allocated budget.

SOLUTION

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

TWS showed an amazing communication skills and genuine interest in the projects success by asking great questions and suggesting even better solutions to deliver a robust solution.

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

I provided the TWS team with a high level requirements for the solution. They showed amazing understanding of the work needed to be done. They were able to work with me to flesh out the detailed solution. The solution itself is divided into a frontend webapp built using React and Nextjs, and the backend was a smart contract developed using Solidity.

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

The TWS allocated two main resources to work on this project. They were more than accommodating to bringing other experts to solve specific problems and keep the solution on track. Highly appreciated.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Very positive feedback. Ultimately, the solution was delivered on time and budget, and thanks to TWS recommendations' the solution ended up to be simpler and more cost effective.

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

Top notch. Their account managers are very friendly and professional. They always communicate progress and any road blockers clearly. TWS were always very transparent and up front with the work being done. I appreciated that very much.

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

The genuine interest in providing the best technical solution instead of trying to sell more work to me.

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

Nothing I can think of.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the head of Engineering. All engineering planning and decisions pass through my desk.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

We hired Team Work Spirit to help us byuld our core infrastructure both from an application layer level and as well in network and devops layer. Our goal was to alleviate the amount of effort needed from our technical team here in the United States and to reduce cost.

SOLUTION

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

I had worked with TWS on a different project for the past 4 years. I did not originally select TWS 4 years ago. But during the last 4 years, I have gained immense trust with their team and have thoroughly enjoyed their professionalism and friendship. For this project specifically, I knew that we needed a large array of skills from application skills to mobile development to devops. I knew they were a good source for all of that.

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

The scope is ongoing. They work with us indefinitely as key members of our team. Key deliverables thus far have been sprint tickets every two weeks, a very unique and powerful devops infrastructure.

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

• 4 full stack engineers
• 1 mobile app developer
• 1 project manager
• 1 qa
• 2 devops

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the systems they have built, we have been able to achieve a 30% reduction in telehealth visit time for each appointment. We have also been able to offer better and more secure connectivity to other telehealth services via our systems.

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

They use JIRA on a 2-week development cycle. We communicate daily through a 20-minute standup. In addition, we utilize Slack to communicate immediately. They are professionals in communication.

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

I have developed lifelong friendships with each member of the team. You are not going to develop friendships with a contractor unless they have your best interest at mind. I always feel like they are trying to do their best to help support our goals.

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

They could do better in providing hourly tracking information. I have enough of a relationship that I trust their working the full allotment of time. But if I didn't have this level of trust, I could see how tracking your hours could be very beneficial.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Huntengo Net Kft. provides online services for Hunters and Hunter Companies. I am the CTO of Huntengo Net Kft.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Team Work Spirit, and what were your goals?

Design and setup system infrastructure. Web development, Mobile app development (iOs, Android) The goal is to implement a system that helps Hunting Companies and Hunters to cooperate together.

SOLUTION

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

I selected the vendor through Upwork system. The deciding factors were demonstrated quality, proper timeframe and big enough expert pool.

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

The scope was to design and implement the backend + API, the mobile and the web application.

Project steps:

1. Planning API and frontend design. Setting up CI/CD system.
2. Implementing API
3. Implementing web app
4. Designing and implementing mobile app
5. Testing TECH STACK we used: Mobile - ReactNative Web: Backend: Nestjs + aws API Frontend: React + Redux + Saga, Next Host: AWS Deliverables:
   1. API
   2. Mobile app
   3. Wep app
   4. CI/CD system (Jenkins)
   5. AWS infrastructure

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

We worked with 6 team members.

• 1 devops
• 1 QA
• 1 frontend developer
• 1 mobile developer
• 2 fullstack developer

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

You can see the web app here: www.huntengo.com We are happy with the deliverables. THey totally meet our expectations.

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

We had daily standups with the whole team. We had 2-week sprints. We communicated with Slack. We used Trello for ticketing system. We used github for vcs. Jenkins for CI/CD. Google meets for video conf.

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

They have professional resources. The communication is very straight and honest. We could solve very hard issues with ease. Their professional approach to convert business requirements to technical solutions was very impressive.

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

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the performance. One place for improvement: at the beginning, not all the developers were able to start immediately.