Xfuturum

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Zaask is the leading marketplace for services in Portugal. We're growing our presence in Spain too. I’m CEO and Co-Founder of Zaask.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Xfuturum?

I was looking for a team that would help us migrate our app to some newer technology because: the performance of the version we had at the time wasn't quite satisfactory; new features took more and more time to deliver; on top of that, developers weren't excited when they heard we were hiring for a Zend application.

SOLUTION

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

I have found Alex and Xfuturum on Linkedin when I was looking for people with experience in the field.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

When we started working with Xfuturum, we had already had a very minimal React app that we weren't satisfied with. After the trial feature, we saw that Xfuturum was a good fit. We decided to leave the application we had and start from scratch with a proper framework for server-side rendering instead of an awkward DIY-solution. The next months were spent building new features and modernizing the application by migrating it to React, module by module.

Alex was involved in some backend and infrastructure work too, while his employees worked exclusively on the frontend. The migration goals we had were achieved in August 2019 and the engagement had effectively come to an end save for some consulting and one urgency we had when we needed a big feature delivered to sign a strategic partnership. We needed it done and we needed it fast, so naturally I called Alex.

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

Alex and his team (initially it was only one person, then another guy joined) took the entire front-end part of the application.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The migration was successful, Zaask.pt now runs on React/next.js. The UI/UX improvements, along with some new features implemented by Xfuturum, had contributed to the growth in sales. In addition to that, the current system is now scalable horizontally and shows a much faster page render time comparing to the old application we had.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had daily standups with Alex who then passed the information down to his team. We had some miscommunications at the beginning of the engagement, but those issues were fixed.

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

We were impressed by their work ethic. During the process of migration, we had 2 APIs running in production simultaneously. With more users coming to the platform the page load times went up. It got especially bad the week Alex had gone on vacation. While on vacation, he had single-handedly configured Logstash and Kibana daily reports to Slack for all our services, so that the backend team could see which calls were causing problems.

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

Some times, working on different time zones, wasn't efficient for communication.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Vice President of Web at InnovatAR, Inc., which is a technology company specializing in web-based augmented reality solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

In early 2020 we had fallen behind on our development schedule due to lack of programming staff. We were connected with Xfuturum through TopTal to augment our staff and finish some key portions of our project that required specific expertise in React JS development.

Our goal was to get some outside perspective on our codebase, make improvements, and accelerate our development timeline to meet our release schedule.

SOLUTION

How did you select Xfuturum and what were the deciding factors?

Toptal.com provided us with several candidates, but we chose Xfuturum because of the depth of their technical knowledge of cutting-edge JavaScript development, React JS, and web-based apps.

We also found Xfuturum's values and company culture to align with ours: positive, collaborative, honest, dedicated, and innovative.

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

We had a kickoff meeting to discuss the codebase and describe the inner workings of the application. We then provided Xfuturum with several distinct tasks and discussed the details of the first two to provide a basis for going forward.

We got Xfuturum added to our development pipeline and communication/PM tools, and then set a schedule to check in with them regularly on progess/sprint meetings. Technologies used: VS Code, React JS, Airtable, Slack, Git, GitHub

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

Alexander Mikhalchenko worked exclusively with our team. He is the owner of Xfuturum.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Xfuturum provided key insights as to the composition of our codebase and what improvements could be made. We gave Xfuturum wide license to make improvements as they recommended.

Xfuturum refactored several key portions of the application, improving their functionality and stability significantly. Xfuturum also provided feedback and approval on the general structure of the codebase's architecture, which InnovatAR sought out specifically due to the experimental nature of the application.

Xfuturum worked extremely efficiently within the budget that we set, and crafted clean, readable, and impressively functional code that set a standard for the continuation of our work after the conclusion of our contract.

Having Xfuturum's expert consultation in regards to our code was crucial in determining whether our product was on track for release.

The contributions Xfuturum made to our codebase also significantly accelerated our readiness for release.

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

Xfuturum is extremely versatile and immediately grasped and utilized the tools that we told them to use; they welcomed any style of management or toolset and adapted instantly.

Their project management style is agile-oriented; frequently or daily check-ins are ideal and provided us with ample opportunity for guidance, checkpoints, and adapting as circumstances changed while we worked to solve various problems within our codebase.

We were immensely satisfied with Xfuturum's commitment to our development schedule, and ended ahead of schedule.

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

The company culture and values at Xfuturum's core make them a delight to work with. Combined with their deep, technical expertise, they are a powerhouse that is eager to help you solve your problems rapidly.

Having worked with many people over the years, I can say with certainty that their outstanding work is a product of the easily apparent good character of their employees.

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

None. We were extremely satisfied with our experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

At the time I started working with Alex and his company I was the CEO of Tractionboard. We were doing the marketing campaign ROI calculation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Xfuturum?

I was looking for front-end developers for our angularjs-based frontend, so we were looking for general staff augmentation.

What were your goals for this project?

It started with a frontend development which later grew into the in-depth refactor of our Single-page application frontend to Aurelia. Later, the team got involved with the backend and helped us fix the bottlenecks in the event processing routine. Alex and Mike migrated our data from MongoDB to a custom ElasticSearch + MongoDB + Redis setup, all dockerized, significantly increasing the performance and providing access to custom data queries we needed for our customers. It was achieved with custom scripting executed on ElasticSearch. Queries that took 5+ minutes on Mongo and needed to be cached became a matter of 1-2 seconds. Eventually, it became clear that Tractionboard had failed to find the product-market fit and we moved on to launching 2 new MVPs and supporting some of our old SaaS services. Xfuturum team has been there with us, developing the MVPs (at that time they were the only developers on those projects) and helping with the legacy (automation).

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I connected with Alex via Linkedin

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

It started with a frontend development which later grew into the in-depth refactor of our Single-page application frontend to Aurelia. Later, the team got involved with the backend and helped us fix the bottlenecks in the event processing routine. Alex and Mike migrated our data from MongoDB to a custom ElasticSearch + MongoDB + Redis setup, all dockerized, significantly increasing the performance and providing access to custom data queries we needed for our customers. It was achieved with custom scripting executed on ElasticSearch. Queries that took 5+ minutes on Mongo and needed to be cached became a matter of 1-2 seconds. Eventually, it became clear that Tractionboard had failed to find the product-market fit and we moved on to launching 2 new MVPs and supporting some of our old SaaS services. Xfuturum team has been there with us, developing the MVPs (at that time they were the only developers on those projects) and helping with the legacy (automation).

What was the team composition?

We worked with Alex (fullstack) and Mike (backend).

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

On the Tractionboard project we increased the event-processing bandwidth from approximately 5 events per second (which was really a problem back then, the queues were getting filled faster then the events were processed) to 100+. Aside from that, we launched 2 separate projects for idea validation.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They fully integrated into our team, and since mid-2016 Alex took the role of the CTO of Tractionboard. They’ve been able to roll with us as we go and adapt to what we needed as a startup. Constant communication in Slack and regular Hangout calls really helped us develop a relationship.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The results and the delivery speed at which they did it. These guys do know how to create MVPs and develop large features in tight time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I do not think so.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

VP Engineering responsible for product development, QA, DevOps functions at Legion Technologies, Inc.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Build the from-end for our cloud based multi tenant product that is used by large enterprises.

SOLUTION

How did you select Xfuturum and what were the deciding factors?

Quality of work delivered.

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

Initial scoping, scrum meetings, evaluating deliverables, feedback.

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

4 - Senior Front end engineer, 1 - Jr Front end engineer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Increase in customer satisfaction. We get compliments for how well the UI is designed and implemented. This is a major differentiator for us.

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

Great communication, regular updates, managing deliverables, etc. is top notch.

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

Quality of work delivered and sticking to timelines.

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

N/A