Waverley Software

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of SensorMedia Inc., a retail display management software system. We develop software solutions that run on tablets, phones, and Android boxes that run digital signage to display pricing and marketing materials. We assemble this media in playlists and campaigns and disseminate it through our mobile apps, as well as our web frontend as a management backend. This way, our customers, which are dominantly telcos and in some cases retailers, can successfully merchandise their products in the brick-and-mortar retail space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We needed Waverley Software to help us with the 2.0 version of our existing product called Smart Circle. It needed to be modernized and streamlined and required performance improvements, not just in the behaviors but also the workflow, which we needed to redesign for the contemporary customer. We also needed to update the market shift, since it was created on a much older framework. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started out with Waverley Software to develop and design what we called the frontend prototype for the MVP. It was a mock-up with a variety of user flows and user stories with UI. This allowed the solution to look and feel like a real website, but it wasn’t running anything yet. The mock-up or prototype was made to help us define the product, but it also sought validation from the customers for a variety of reasons. They were the designers and the co-developers, and I was the product lead with them, facilitating their design back and forth with the QA and the project management.

They used different technologies for the design and development of the mock-up and for the final product. For the mock-up, they recommended Miro as an intermediate way to communicate design concepts and basic ideas, which we already had, so I was glad. Ultimately, they suggested that the prototype be developed on Figma, which allowed us to transition into a live or close to live design style once we eventually developed it as a frontend UI. 

They gave us some recommendations related to infrastructure, data management, and certain tools and modules were outside the scope because it was too early, and we were looking at workflows and views. However, they did make a recommendation for Material-UI versus a few others, and we agreed to Material-UI, React.js, and JavaScript in general. We signed off on these recommendations because we needed to make that decision to know how the frontend would be. 

What is the team composition?

This varied depending on the capabilities we needed at different times. On average, I saw 9–10 people at any given point. I met the business analysts, the frontend designers, the project lead, the backend support person, and an auditor. 

Overall, I met with a lot of their teammates. In some cases, we had three frontend designers; some are in leadership positions, and others are just learning, working with the project, and watching. They built a mentorship program into our contract, but they didn’t charge us for it. This was very good for redundancy if we lost somebody, but also because it's good that they mentor their people and get them to grow.

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

We started looking for vendors, and we went through Clutch and a variety of other sources, solicited a feeler, and described the project to a number of companies, most of which responded.

We found Waverley Software’s Clutch profile in November 2020. We were able to discern they had the best understanding of our requirements and meet in their response to us as well based on the quote size and our judgment. We also based our criteria on the site, their contract size, geography, and the reviews they had — which were beyond excellent and spoke volumes about them. Moreover, their quote was very much on the lower side.

Once you select the vendor, you want to stay with the vendor and keep the same team for both design and development, otherwise you lose the benefits of that momentum on the design process. That’s why we wanted to make sure that whoever we selected for the design, even though it was a relatively small project, we’d make sure they’d be there for the long haul. We were targeting the full project turnkey to be developed, but the first phase was to develop the frontend as one of our assessment criteria. We’d use this project as a test to know if we’d be able to trust them in the long term. 

Waverley Software had the right recipe, meaning they weren't crazy on budget, and they knew what they were talking about. That allowed us to start with them on a basic project, which is what we called the frontend prototype for the MVP.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2021–March 2021, and we did some final tweaks and modifications after.

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

They always responded to my questions within a few hours. They assembled documentation and created journals for us to sign off on and ask questions in a very regimented and organized way. That allowed us to have traceability. Our project handoff and history were very clear and easy to understand. 

I think the best way I can measure their performance is by their high level of professionalism. The team was deferential and clearly indicated how they spent their time and resources, and they stayed within the budget. They were also clear on how each task was assigned and how long they’d spend on it. They never went ahead without either soft or formal approval. This allowed us to have a lot of control and make sure that we weren't developing in the wrong direction. 

Furthermore, Waverley Software’s team conducted themselves respectfully, scheduling their time effectively and working with ours despite the time difference. The team recommended resources when and if appropriate, and didn't gouge. They didn't use the project to hold us at ransom, which I've seen happen before midway through other projects.

Their performance was good. It was a big project with a lot of scope creep, but they handled it in stride, and they didn’t complain. They worked really well with the kind of dynamic scope we had. I really want to tip my hat to that, because that's not easy to do. I think people overlook how hard it is to manage scope. 

Due to this performance, we've also engaged them for other projects unrelated to this. We've had them work with us on DevOps as well as an iOS mobile app.

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We had video calls, regular weekly calls on design, and Slack for typical stuff. We also had Figma, Miro, and their comment system to communicate on various little topics. They’d ask about the look and feel of one thing in the comment area, and we’d respond there, so it stayed in the medium of the tool. All of these tools were used and leveraged to allow ourselves to get the design across the finish line.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

I don’t really have a comparison point. I never liked third parties because I had terrible experiences before. I was hesitant to use third parties again, but Waverley Software changed my mind. With this project, I was pleasantly surprised. I wish I had met Waverly before, which I think says enough about the competition versus them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Waverley Software did excellently, but if we have to look at the negatives and improvements, I’d like to see more confidence from them and less dependency on my vision of the product. I’d love to see more of them sharing with me their way or making me consider the best way to work based on their experience as a company that had done a hundred projects a week for a decade. 

I would’ve liked them to bring their knowledge in instead of asking me what I thought because the truth is that when you hire a team or an employee, you’re hiring them because they’re smarter than you, and you want them to explain how it should be and challenge your way of thinking. I’d love to have more, and I told them this before, too. 

Any advice for potential customers?

It’s the standard advice — know your project and the boundaries of your project and set a ceiling on the deliverables. Waverly Software, just like anybody else, understands goals; they understand your vision, and it’s their job to get you there, so know your project and what you want to get it done. 

Specific to working with Waverly Software, the best thing to do is to challenge them on how much they copy and paste from prior project proposals. Sometimes, it’s common. It takes a lot of time to spec out a customer and assess whether they're going to go to them, so it's easy to copy and paste and use the last project's template. It’s fine to do that, but they must be careful. You have to notice if it’s a standard boilerplate template. You need to actually embed the hard specific questions to your product and your goals. You might have to go through 1–3 iterations with the proposal before you get to a place where you feel perfectly understood.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of software engineering for a company that provides renewable energy solutions for residential users. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We hired them to build a mobile and cloud-based platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We put together an AWS server stack to support a web interface for product users, technicians, and maintenance personnel that will be interacting with the equipment. They also built Android and iOS apps, employing native technologies on each platform as well as tools like Cradle.

What is the team composition?

They have a team of 5–7 developers. We scaled their team size depending on our needs at any given point in the project.

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

I conducted web company searches and shortlisted about five firms. They sent the most impressive proposal and both their expertise and proposed budget seemed like the best fit.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $300,000–$350,000 at this point. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since October 2019.

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

They’ve always delivered pretty high quality, testing the app thoroughly on their end. Because they’re only staffed against building the interfaces, not the entire system, there have been a few small instances of miseducation. However, that is to be expected on a project of this scale. All issues we’ve run into have been simple fixes.  

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They assigned a project manager to us, and we spoke almost daily through Slack, weekly calls, and other tools. Communication has been impressive. That keeps a stream of feedback and ideas moving back and forth between our teams. They’ve come up with ideas that we had not considered prior to engaging. While some deadlines slipped, they always let us know well ahead of time and were cognitive of our budget and timeline requirements as well.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their staff is knowledgeable, open to feedback, and intelligent. They were a great addition to the project and team. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s been a few small language barrier issues, but that hasn’t been a significant problem. We also operate in a niche industry, so their initial project estimations didn’t encompass everything.  

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared to engage with a highly educated and well-rounded staff.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering for a power tool manufacturer. We work across stacks.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We used Waverley to help support some of our development needs through staff augmentation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed to quickly spin up some additional resources within the team, which is what we originally used Waverley for. Over time, the engagement has expanded to backend development, as well as some frontend development.

They’ve dedicated resources to working exclusively on dev-ops related tasks, as well as managing our AWS infrastructure. The team works with us to scale and appropriately develop our general infrastructure, making sure it’s kept secure and running. There are also backend engineers working on some of our internal development tools, writing node-based codes and interacting with our various databases and other systems. We also have frontend developers who are working on our marketing and project sharing platforms. Those developers work directly with our designers and act as part of our own team, going through various backlogs of tickets and other experiences.

What is the team composition?

There are currently three full-time employees and one part-time employee working on various projects throughout the company. 

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

They were recommended to us by another company who was also using Waverley to manage their infrastructure. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a little over $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in March 2019 and is ongoing.

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

Since partnering with Waverley, we’ve launched a product globally within the US and Europe, working against some reasonably tight deadlines. The team was quite flexible, working additional hours to ensure we got our product out. Most of the deliverables have been customer-facing changes and features we’ve been able to deliver with their support. 

We’ve also migrated from legacy systems with AWS to Kubernetes. 

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

They perform as a remote extension of our own team, so we track projects within our own Jira system and communicate in our Slack channels. We have weekly meetings, and they’re quite flexible. They’ve been great at sourcing and interviewing additional resources when necessary as well. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The flexibility they provide to spin up and spin down developers has been great. They always work extremely hard to help us meet our needs and fill in gaps. We’ve really appreciated that they’ve been able to roll with some short-term changes and always fulfill goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There haven’t been any problems with them. The engagement has been great; we’ve had no complaints.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly articulate the day-to-day work you expect from the developers, and work to make them feel as if they’re part of our team. Have check-ins and keep communication consistent. Be sure to give Waverley as much detail as you can as early as you can. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of engineering at a beauty services marketplace, where people can find professionals to do hair and nails. We also have a B2B product that those professionals use to manage their whole business, end-to-end.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

Largely, it was growth. We were trying to grow the engineering team, and we also had some very specific needs where we needed people to quickly go heads-down.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They all worked remotely from Ukraine, doing DevOps and a Python upgrade (2 to 3). We needed someone who could create and execute on a plan without a whole lot of oversight or the need to be fully embedded with a team. They had to be able to work pretty autonomously. They also participated in development planning, which can be seen as design, but they didn’t do any visual design.

What is the team composition?

We contracted two engineers through them, and within Waverley we worked with two people to help find and manage that relationship.

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

Our VP of engineering had worked with them before or knew someone who had recommended them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $60,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2019, but we’re wrapping up currently. We’re also exploring if we can continue working with them.

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

A lot of the results are internal-based, but I will say that they’ve been able to deliver. For the Python upgrade, the engineer jumped in, created a plan immediately and started delivering upgrades on that plan. I don’t recall the exact turnaround time, but it was at a pace that some of the changes required from our internal engineers were coming too fast to keep up with. We had to scramble to get resources to test things they delivered and put things into production. Their pace and momentum were very good.

They were very good at driving themselves and getting the work done. The fully Python upgrade isn’t complete yet, but that’s part of the plan. They’ve executed on all the work we’ve given them.

How did PSYKHE perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done pretty well. Largely, they managed their own time. They worked with teams. There were times they got a little caught up, usually when they were in areas of the code they weren’t as familiar with, because a lot of the codebase requires a certain level of domain knowledge. They also provided updates along the way.

Our primary tools are Jira and Confluence, and then we meet with them daily on video calls in the mornings

What did you find most impressive about them?

Largely, it’s their willingness to jump in and get things done. Especially with a codebase that’s unfamiliar to them. It’s been one of the biggest things for us because it’s always the hardest thing when working with remote contract engineers. It’s always a question of how productive people like than can be in a system they don’t understand initially.

I’ve always appreciated how much they want to be a part of the team. They enjoy communicating with us and our team members even though a lot of their role is autonomous and self-directed. They’ve made an effort to connect with us and be part of the overall process.

On the Waverley side, I liked how responsive they were when we ran into problems. They were quick in the interview process and were pretty lightweight once we hired the resources. They wanted a message every Monday about how the engineers were doing on a red, yellow, green scale. Even though we didn’t run into any issues, they made it clear they wanted to help if we did experience any.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. I’ve worked with other offshoring engineering consulting, and they can be hit or miss with the talent they get you. I wasn’t super hopeful going into this because of that experience, but, overall, they’ve really come through. I can’t say there’s anything I would change.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be direct and honest. Don’t settle. That’s the issue I’ve run into with other consulting firms. Don’t say to yes to ‘good enough’ engineers. We were pretty strict this time, and unless the engineers really met our considerations we said no.

Please describe your company and your position there.

Statement IQ is a payments consulting and software development firm for banks and the fintech industry. I am the owner and primary consultant. We employ approximately 15 independent consultants and developers for all aspects of payments assistance. We work primarily in the merchant acquiring space.

For what projects/services did your company hire Waverley Software?

Some software projects dictate the environment and programming languages required. These projects often have ridged timelines and requirements for on-site for specific locations. In this case, we needed a developer who could program React JS in an Azure environment, and be physically located in Miami Florida for a six month engagement.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed to find someone to not only fill this seat, but who could contribute to design discussions, and bring insight to best practices. Experience with front-end UX layout, navigation, reporting and dashboard techniques, and the ability to create pixel perfect screens with rapidly changing mock-ups was very important.

How did you select this vendor?

I was told that Waverley Software was a great resource for people in need of specific technology developers. We had already tried a tech recruiter and after several hundred resumes, we were no closer to finding the right individual.

Within a day of contacting Waverley, we had found our guy and we were coordinating flights, and apartments so he could get started. My lead developer worked closely with Waverley's staff to assure we got everything delivered, and the process was very smooth.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Eugene, the developer provided by Waverley, worked in my customers Miami based office with a team of people from both the customers staff, and with my staff. He joined a daily stand-up and other meetings as needed to understand the project and contribute to the design with ideas from his experience in UX development.

What was the team composition?

Myself, my lead developer based in Miami, Eugene, and a team of developers overseas.

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

This project helped improve my company, and completed the project on time and budget. At one point, we were all falling behind schedule due to the rapid growth of the team, so I went out and bought everyone noise-cancelling head sets to improve productivity. It certainly helped. At the end of the project, we celebrated by taking the team to a Miami Heat basketball game. We have all become friends through the course of the project.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Project management was delivered by the customer, and was one of the biggest difficulties of the project. I was very grateful that my staff was willing to be flexible with such difficulties.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Waverley Software was fast, efficient, effective, and professional. They delivered a best-in-class developer in a short time frame, and regularly checked in to assure we were satisfied.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No - very happy.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT director of a multinational fashion apparel retail company. Our company has five offices, covering Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Korea, and Singapore. We have around 1,000 shops in these markets. I have a 20-person internal team, not including myself.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We had some IT development projects — mainly mobile apps — but didn’t have the internal capabilities to complete them. For one of our apps, we had gone through the first phase of development but weren’t comfortable with the vendor that helped us. So, I started looking for better partners for phases two and three of development.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waverley helped us develop a mobile app for consumer engagement. The solution had a CRM integration. They completed the second phase of this startup project well, so I felt confident in giving them more projects.

Waverley also developed a web platform to help us manage our licensees’ activity, contracts, and product approvals. This was particularly helpful for our license business in China.

What is the team composition?

They assigned three developers in the beginning, and we’ve expanded to six people, now. That includes a project manager, three senior developers, and two junior developers.

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

I was previously running some projects with another company, but they’d closed their Chinese office. One of their former employees introduced me to Waverley, so I evaluated outsourced vendors in different countries (e.g., China, Hong Kong, the US) before going with them.

How much have you invested with them?

Our total cost to date is around $400,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Waverley around November 2017, and it’s ongoing. We’ve run multiple projects with them, and I consider them a part of my team. The six people there are totally dedicated to my company.

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

I don’t have any benchmarks to compare them to. But, in terms of quality, I’m very satisfied with the level of service that Waverly provides along with their IT development qualifications.

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

I feel satisfied with their services. Waverly uses a project management system, but my company isn’t that big on using formal methodologies. I basically use email and Skype to communicate. Since they’re located in Vietnam, I know the language barrier can be difficult for them, but I appreciate that they’re still able to carry on with projects. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about them is their technical skills. I would definitely put Waverley in my top list if someone asked me to refer development companies.

I asked them to do some web development a few months after our collaboration started. They weren’t really familiar with the technology initially, but it only took them a short period to learn Java and .NET. They delivered a tight-scheduled project on time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The project management timelines could’ve been improved at times. I don’t think it’s out of control, but I sometimes need my teammates to work closely with them. They’re not sitting next to us, so we don’t always know what they’re doing. They may take a bit more than what we expected to hand over a sprint. Overall, they’re good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Based on my experience, clients shouldn’t treat Waverley as just an outsourced partner. They should treat them like a part of the company — the same as the internal team. That can help build the relationship.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a SaaS company. We provide B2B software in the AI monitoring space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverly Software?

We had a lot of development needs for building full-stack technology from DevOp infrastructure to APIs. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waverly Software provides frontend development services, such as UI development and programming.  They provide full-stack and API engineers who build modern technology API services in the cloud using Docker and Kubernetes. 

They also provide really good software development processes on top of all the engineer resources. The team provide project management and best practice engineering processes. They work in Angular, JavaScript, Java, and Python.

Additionally, they provide QA testing. They perform both manual testing and automation testing for UI frontend and API as well. We also use them for manual QA. We had the whole team doing additional data labeling and support for our AI infrastructure.

What is the team composition?

We currently work with 14 members of their team.

How did you come to work with Waverly Software?

We recieved a referral from a local Bay Area source.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested about $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement with Waverly Software began in June 2019.

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

They’re a good source of talent. Waverly Software brought a lot of best practice architecture into the company. They’ve increased the test coverage significantly. The team has been instrumental in developing new features. They’ve really integrated into the engineer organization as much as a local engineer is.

How did Waverly Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Waverly Software is accommodating in both time and resources to fit our work schedule here to have team meetings and scrums. They’ve also been very efficient in recruiting existing talent pools. The team is able to recruit top-end engineers and QA, in a timely fashion, from other places within Ukraine if they don’t have one on the bench. Our teams communicate via Jira, Slack, and email.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re really good at communicating and project management. Waverly Software has very good practices of having part-time local project managers helping us to offload some of that job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, everything has been great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be very detailed about what you’re looking for in the person that you hire. They’re very good at sourcing what you want, but you have to be clear on what you want. Think it through before you hire them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal of an enterprise software development company. We focus on life sciences but work in many different industries. We utilize many technologies and make decisions based on the client’s needs.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We partnered with Waverley Software to take on bigger projects with their more advanced development capabilities.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waverley Software offers desktop, web, and mobile development services. As we get projects that fit with their talents, we work with them. For a Fortune 500 client, we worked with Waverley Software to deliver an expert system. Currently, we have several projects underway with them.

For backend projects, their team uses .NET core and the Microsoft tech stack. For mobile app projects, their team uses Swift and Flutter. On websites, we use NodeJS. In the past, we used many web-based technologies such as XML, C-Sharp, and classic technologies involved in delivering web apps.

What is the team composition?

The size of the Waverley Software team varies based on the project’s needs. Currently, we work with 15 people including a project manager, QA personnel, UI/UX designers, and developers.

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

A colleague recommended Waverley Software.

How much have you invested with them?

Over the course of the engagement, we spent probably more than $2,000,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2009 and the engagement’s ongoing.

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

Client satisfaction is a big metric. When we developed the expert medical system for our Fortune 500 client, it was viewed as one of the most successful outsourced projects that they had done. They’ve always delivered work on time and on budget with close controls, which is another important factor. Their team has managed change well too.

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a highly collaborative process. We communicate on a daily basis via Skype, Zoom, and email. They have good availability in my time zone. Their team tends to work later days to facilitate availability in my time zone. They’re able to use the same resources across our different projects and we formed personal relationships with developers. They have high-quality project managers who provide ongoing information in terms of budget and schedule adherence. We have 1–2 standing meetings every week to go over any projects, which is a good method of communication and keeping everyone up to date. I meet with the principals in the Bay Area once a year. Their engineers come up with good ideas to solve any problems that we have. They give good solutions that keep us on budget and schedule.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work is their greatest asset. Their work has never been an issue. Our life sciences clients go through formal validation. Several systems that Waverley Software developed for us have been used in internal and external clinical trials. There’s a high bar to meet in terms of the final product’s quality. We’ve always had a good experience with our clients’ QA teams in terms of a response to what we delivered. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’ve never been disappointed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be involved early and set expectations for the level of communication. Be precise with your language. Fine-tuning the style of communication is important to get good results.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a startup called Plannuh, Inc. as the Vice President of Engineering. We offer software solutions that guide businesses in budgeting, planning, and investing based on market trends.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We needed a team of developers to build our signature SaaS product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We don’t have an in-house development team, so Waverley Software takes care of all our development needs. They built the SaaS platform in AWS, utilizing Angular for the frontend and Python for the backend. 

What is the team composition?

Presently, we are working with eight developers, but we are considering expanding the team by the end of 2020. 

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

I worked with Waverley Software when I was at my previous company. When I started working at Plannuh, Inc. I recommended that we start working with them.

The rest of the executive staff had the chance to meet the Waverley Software CEO when he was traveling in the U.S., and they felt confident in their abilities. 

Initially, I had been introduced to Waverley Software by a colleague who had a good experience with them. 

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve spent about $700,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in March 2019, and the work is ongoing. 

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

Looking at the difference between our original product and the product they’ve developed, it’s clear that they’ve had a huge impact on our business. Their work is part of the reason we secured investments from Glasswing and Gradient. They’ve helped us meet our objectives for continuing growth of the company. 

How did Waverley Software perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is one of their strengths. We are not the only client that our project manager is working with, but it feels like we are.

The team is trained in agile methodology, and they’re all very experienced. We have daily status meetings via Zoom and use Slack to communicate, as well as Jira and Confluence.   

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are highly-skilled in recruiting team members. Their team has access to a rich talent pool in Ukraine. This allows them to have a depth of experience in various niches. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wish that they were able to think outside of the agile methodology more often.    

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to understand the strengths and challenges of working with an offshore team that is assertive and independent. It’s also beneficial to outline the rules of the engagement, rather than giving them detailed specifications. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of technology for a health tech company. We have a service that allows people to manage their health information for free. Our clients are medical foundation and pharmaceutical companies interested in working with groups of consenting people with a special set of medical conditions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Waverley Software?

We were looking to augment our development team. Our internal team is pretty small, so we were looking to increase our capacity in iOS development, web development, and QA. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Waverley Software supplies teammates as the need arises for us. Once we inform them of our need, they’ll send a profile of one of their staff members and we make a decision based on that. If none of the people they supply seem right for the job, they’ll recruit a person for the position and, again, send us the profile and we'll interview them to get a sense of whether or not they’re a fit. The developer we choose then integrates within our team, attends the meetings, and works independently for the most part. Over the course of our engagement, they’ve provided iOS developers, web developers, and QA staff. 

What is the team composition?

At most, they’ve supplied five teammates at a time. Currently, we work with one iOS developer from their team and we have a US-based point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Waverley Software?

We found Waverley Software through one of our advisors. They had a contact who had worked with Waverley Software and we were introduced that way. We got along well, they talked about their approach, and their company seemed like a good fit. We began just with two development resources and the project went well, so we’ve continued with additional resources. 

How much have you invested with them?

Throughout the engagement, we’ve spent a little over $400,000. We pay a monthly rate that depends on how many resources we need.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in January 2018 and the engagement is ongoing.

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

I don’t have any hard statistics, but overall we’ve been completely happy with the quality of Waverley Software’s resources. They supplied qualified people and any issues we have are resolved very quickly. 

How did Waverley Place perform from a project management standpoint?

They acted like members of our in-house team, so the project ran very smoothly. They attend our weekly meetings, are available to talk through any concerns, and work with us to find the right balance of resources. We communicate easily and my daily point of contact is based in the US. Work was delivered ahead of time and some teammates worked around the clock to make sure everything was built the way we wanted it. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

In many cases, they exceed our expectations in terms of the quality and quantity of the work. Like I mentioned before, they sometimes work so much to the point where I have to check-in and ensure no one was over-working themselves. They are very committed to making sure the work is done on-time and well. 

In this industry, we’re not looking for a “unique” vendor so much as someone who is reliable and gets the job done right, which is exactly what they do. We can count on Waverley Software to provide excellent resources and deliver great services. They’re flexible when we need to increase or decrease resources and are affordable. We don’t have any reason to consider a different team as we look to expand in the future. They’ve been a great partner to us and we’ll choose them first over any others. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing jumps to mind for them to improve on. Their pricing is fair and aligns with others in the industry.