BairesDev

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of platform engineering for Celmatix, we combine data science and genomics to create solutions focused on fertility potential.

For what projects/services did your company hire BairesDev?

We hired BairesDev to support our internal team’s development efforts. We were building a product called Polaris, which is a SaaS platform.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted a team to provide support in creating our primary product.

How did you select this vendor?

My company had been working with BairesDev before I was hired.

Describe the project in detail.

BairesDev supported our team in developing our SaaS platform. Within the product, they built the ability for data collection and predictive analytics. In addition to this, their team helped us create other platforms for our various business needs. They created a site to help us collect patient’s consent as part of a research study and built an internal tool to improve our testing workflow.

What was the team composition?

Initially, they provided two engineers to augment our team of eight. Later in the project, the number reduced to one teammate to fit our needs.

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

Our platform is highly improved thanks to BairesDev’s support. They successfully built systems that enhance our company.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were available over Slack at all times. We had regular meetings and they fully integrated themselves with our team. They had an exemplary approach to the work.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

BairesDev provided a team of hardworking, skilled engineers and they were critical for our success. The level of their insight was superior to others in the market.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Occasionally, around holidays or time-off, there were minor miscommunications between our teams. This wasn’t a significant issue since we had direct contact with the engineers, but those specific instances could have been improved.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a QA and release manager at an online education and certification company for the outdoor gaming industry. We provide hunting, fishing, and boating education as well as certification in many outdoor recreational activities.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We were using another offshore testing company, but we weren't getting the quality that we needed. We started looking for a new vendor to provide QA services for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us build out some of our automation test suites and our performance testing. They're currently working on web-based testing. They look at user stories and develop tests based on the expectations defined in the stories, so they handle the full end-to-end functional testing for us. We use SQL and agile methodology, but all of BairesDev’s resources are highly experienced with various types of testing.

What is the team composition?

We work with three members of their team.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

We were specifically looking for a Latin American company because they're in the same time zone as we are. We work with agile methodology and need instant communication between our QA team and our development team, so having somebody in the same time zone works a lot better. I talked to their sales representative and liked their approach, so I decided to give them a chance.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in December 2017 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

We've seen a lot better coverage on the tests and defect capture rate has increased. It's a collaborative effort from the QA team as a whole, but the majority of the team is with BairesDev.  

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We replaced a team of five with a team of two people from BairesDev and they manage the same workload very effectively. They're in the same time zone, so they're able to respond almost instantly. Also, they've met all of our deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're willing to go above and beyond the contracted hours to meet our needs. Besides, they're very knowledgeable and turn things around quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're a smaller company and it might take them some time to find the available resource. But they've always found the resources that we requested and met our needs.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about your requirements and what you're looking for, and they’ll do high-quality work for you. Some less expensive companies rarely provide the same quality and value in return on investment. South American market is slightly more expensive than some other offshore markets, but don't rule them out because of that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of Exscribe Incorporated, a medical records software vendor. Our company is based in the US and has been in business since about 2001. The flagship product we offer is an electronic health records application that we market to orthopedic practices nationwide. 

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

Our primary goal was staff augmentation. We wanted to be able to work on a larger number of projects at the same time. Unfortunately, we’d tried working with multiple teams beforehand that proved ineffective. As a small company, we needed a capable partner who could scale our development resources up and out when necessary. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Feeling wary initially based on our experiences with other contractors, we started our off with a proof of concept project to make sure we felt comfortable working with BairesDev. During this initial endeavor, they proved their merit. Both their company itself and the engineers they provided were the right matches for us. 

This particular collaboration focused on web development. Angular and Node.js were the primary technical skills we requested, but BairesDev can find resources for any type of development we need. 

At this point, we're expanding our partnership for the next quarter. We will source a greater number of resources through BairesDev including QA engineers who can perform web-based automated end-to-end testing. 

What is the team composition? 

BairesDev assigned three resources to our project. We work with a developer, an account manager, and a project manager who checks in every two weeks from their team. 

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

After working with several unsuccessful vendors in the past, we really wanted to find the right fit this time. BairesDev was quick to find and turn around high-quality candidates. They were very flexible about our collaboration and offered several options for the developers we contracted. 

How much have you invested with them?

Many intangible factors aren't included in the cost, including the time we spent in meetings and my personal working hours. Since we purposefully integrated BairesDev within our team, certain variables are difficult to capture. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We first came across a sales representative from BairesDev earlier this year. Based on our email correspondence, we started working together in August 2018. We have an ongoing partnership. 

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

We were fully satisfied with both BairesDev as a development firm and the individual resources they provided. They enable us to further our goals by increasing the number of projects we can tackle simultaneously. We've been impressed by the timeliness and reliability we've seen from the individuals on their team. 

BairesDev helps us accomplish more work within a shorter timeframe than we ever could before. The caliber of their work has been consistently great. Since poor quality was a problem we frequently had with previous vendors, this was an important strength. As we move forward, we’re continuing to scale up our efforts together.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

BairesDev is very flexible about the way we work together. We found it more effective to integrate their resources into our internal teams rather than send them specifications to build alone and show us a few weeks later. 

The developers participate in our daily standups as part of an Agile process. We used Zoom for communication and meetings with the account manager and project manager. The language discrepancy didn’t pose any challenges.

BairesDev has met all of our expectations and stuck to the deadlines. The developers were open to using whatever technology we use. Once we set them up on our Microsoft Teams account, they quickly adapted to our internal processes. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

BairesDev performed especially well with identifying the exact type of candidates we wanted instead of sending us irrelevant options. They zeroed in on the specific resources we needed and always proposed people who were a good fit. Additionally, we appreciated their flexibility and quick pace. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't have any criticisms at this time. There are always areas for improvement, but we've been very pleased with our engagement and interactions with BairesDev. In fact, we're expanding our partnership as a result. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the director of operations at a software consulting firm.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We were working on the projects that required many creative and engineering solutions, so we needed more developers to staff our teams.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They're using React, .NET Framework, Angular, Sitecore, and other technologies to help us build customer software. They always understand exactly what we're asking of them and provide valuable recommendations, especially when we leave gaps in our requirements. Also, they've helped us optimize some of our practices, such as QA.

What is the team composition?

They've assigned about 20 developers to our projects.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

They were referred to us. It's convenient for us to work with a company in Latin America because we share the same hours and have the ability to talk to their team during the business hours.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2016 and the relationship is ongoing.

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

Their developers are able to integrate quickly and efficiently into any project as if they've always been a part of our team. We can spend less time building detailed requirements and getting them on board with the project, which makes the process more effective.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We don't use them for project management, but they're doing a great job from a communications standpoint. We use Slack, Jira, and email to stay in touch. They're very responsive and understand exactly what we need.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're able to provide the resources we need–whether it's a React developer or a Sitecore developer–as soon as we ask them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their team members are able to work as an integral part of your team. If you're looking for someone to work with a very limited set of requirements, you won't be taking full advantage of their capacity. They can recommend the things that are beyond the specifics that you request and their ideas will occasionally be better than yours.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO for a mechanical subcontractor. We do plumbing, HVAC, and electrical installation in new residential construction spaces. We have a lot of custom software that we’ve written to help us manage labor and material efficiently.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We needed staff augmentation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided developers to help us improve our custom software. We’re an ASP.NET shop that uses MySQL databases, Vue.js, Angular, and MVC. Our main application is in WinForms, which is an older ASP technology, but it’s something BairesDev is able to support. It’s a big deal for us to find someone that can still work in something like that. They also help us with the API that we’ve created.

We interact a lot with other applications like Google or WorldAPP, for which we’ve had to create apps that can go through and pull data. Overall, BairesDev has been able to help us to gather data from different systems and bring it into our main system.

This summer, we had some specific projects for our warehousing department. Our material in the construction industry represents 40% of our revenue. We required a better way for managing that material, so we hired one of their developers for a 10-week period. He came in, went into our systems, and revised and wrote new forms, tables, APIs, processes, and reports. He carefully examined and improved the way we track our data.

What is the team composition?

They have a salesperson and a project manager that work with me. They’ve assigned a sufficient amount of resources to my project, and if I have a problem with one of the developers, I reach out to their project manager, who handles it for me. I’ve worked with five or six of their developers over the years, but have only had a max of three at the same time. The very first one that I hired through them is still part of my staff.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

I found them on LinkedIn. I had previously worked with a firm like theirs in South America, so I was familiar with their style. I was impressed with them from talking with their sales team and their CEO about their rates and what they could do. The rate I pay them is a lot less than what I would pay a full-time developer here.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested between $50,000–$199,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together at the end of 2014 and the collaboration is ongoing.

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

Over the past five years, our development team has helped a company of only 100 employees with a single app written in very old technology with an average database scheme grow into a company of over 300 employees. They’ve built many robust apps that are responsive, mobile friendly, and accessible, which helped the company become more modernized.

Furthermore, we’ve done a good job of getting the data that our field employees need on time and where they need it.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m absolutely pleased with their communication. They’ve worked with the project management software I use, which is Basecamp or Asana. BairesDev’s staff communicate just as well, if not better than my in-house developers. We have daily stand-up meetings with our team and a monthly check-in with their sales and project management team, which really adds a lot of value.

I’ve worked with offshore and nearshore contractors, and it’s a huge win for us to work with a team that we don’t have to wait for 10 hours to reach. Another thing I really like about our arrangement is that they thought of everything, going as far as to include a rate in our contract for bringing one of their developers on site in case we need to.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their key strengths include their diversity and portfolio. Other companies are successful, but they don’t have access to a wide range of developers. If you need someone that can write Android programs and also do HTML markup, BairesDev can handle it.

The second full-time hire we made with them was when we transitioned from using a mom-and-pop accounting package to full-blown SQL driven ERP software. They actually had a developer that could work with that tool. Even though he only worked with it a little bit, he at least had some knowledge. We were able to get him for $150 less per hour than if we had hired another company to consult and do the reports.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would suggest that they train their developers further, but maybe this goes on without my knowledge. I don’t know how much they’re pouring into their staff, but I would love it if they were constantly adding skills to get better.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the software development manager for a data services solution company.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We decided to leverage some of the tools we had been using internally and start offering them to our customers and partners, so we needed to rapidly build up a development team that could start working on an externally-facing toolset. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

BairesDev provided additional developers to work on three components of our platform: the backend, frontend, and QA. In addition to helping our team design the UI/UX, they helped us integrate APIs and test the platform. The technology stack included Groovy, Grails, MySQL, jQuery, and Selenium.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of about 10 developers.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

The relationship had started before I joined my company, but I significantly increased the number of resources we hired from their team. I was happy to continue working with them because they were already familiar with our work and culture. They've been very understanding of the types of resources we were looking for both from a security and technical perspective.

How much have you invested with them?

Our resources cost anywhere from $5,400–$6,000 per month, so we probably spend up to $60,000 per month in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working together since January 2015.

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

BairesDev provides reliable, top-notch development support on a daily basis. If it weren't for their team, we wouldn't be able to do nearly as much as we have been over the last few years.

Not only do they provide basic development services, but they also help us sustain and assist in engineering support for our clients. They're great at catching and fixing bugs, especially when we rush things through. Thanks to this support, we're able to react quickly to our clients' needs.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

I'm very pleased with their communication overall. They've been flexible and adapted to using tools we prefer, such as Slack, and are proactive about keeping an updated calendar listing the availability of all the developers we work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They're very good at finding the right resources at any given time, depending on the role of the person we're looking for. They're also very responsive; it's rare that I ever have to follow up with them on anything.

Are there any areas they could improve?

In the beginning, they weren't as good about finding the right resources for certain aspects of work, but they've since learned very quickly how to select the best people for the task at hand.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We try to make cryptocurrency investing simple, easy, and accessible to everyone globally. I’m the head of product engineering.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We were looking for engineering talent all over the world to augment our team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work primarily with them on Scala, Java, and Java Virtual Machine platforms. They allow us to find the best engineers in South America.

What is the team composition?

We work with a team of about eight. They’re a mix of Scala, Java, Android, and iOS developers.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

They were selected before I came on board, but having a team in South America is advantageous. They’re in a similar time zone, so coordination is easy.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend somewhere between $600,000–$1.2 million annually.

What is the status of this engagement?

They’ve worked with us since at least 2016. We have an ongoing relationship with them.

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

They’re very well-connected and have strong recruiting capabilities, which is great for us. They provide excellent engineers and increase our talent pool. Their talent retention is also very good.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We don’t use them for project-related work, but I do work with their managers who watch over our account. They work through our issues and are very responsive. They focus on providing good service.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Again, their recruiting capability is terrific. They’re very reputable and have access to great talent. They work at a high standard and have connections all over South America.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re doing a good job. We still need more Scala developers, but they’re tough to find. That’s more of a general problem with the field.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Azlo, a startup that delivers core banking services for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the U.S.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

We needed dev talent on a short timeframe to work on sophisticated financial service applications.

What was the scope of their involvement?

BairesDev worked on web and mobile apps that deliver core banking services through a cloud-based infrastructure. The apps deliver debit card and ACH functionalities in the U.S. for business banking account services. BairesDev provides resources for DevOps and architectural work, using JavaScript, Angular, and MongoDB as their primary stack. Most of their work involves our cloud, which is through Amazon.

What is the team composition?

We work with their CEO and a project manager.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

They were a referral.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in August 2017, and the work is ongoing.

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

Their resources are skilled, and the work is high quality.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

They have good project management. We use a spreadsheet to track assignments and have our own system for managing the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

BairesDev effectively sources and filters talent, building a team that perfectly fits our needs. They all have experience in financial services, which is exactly what we wanted.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be more sensitive to the markets they’re working in, especially when going between onshore and nearshore models.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO [chief operating officer] of Howzbout, a startup company in Chicago. We are producing an application that has 2 aspects to it. A B2C consumer application is meant to take the indecision out of activity planning, with a social and communication twist. On the B2B side, it’s a performance marketing advertising platform where merchants can advertise performance models.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

The initial challenge was to define a strategy for staff augmentation, primarily to find resources more quickly from a market perspective and also lower costs compared to what we get here local to Chicago.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went through a couple of different plans and met it out to get the initial prototype built from a screen perspective. We’re in the midst right now of interviewing a developer and engineering candidates to actually build the prototype. It’s extremely early in the development. In addition to fundraising, we’re also in the process of building screens and the concept, which is where the UX [user experience] designer comes in. We’re not physically producing code yet.

From a design perspective, we’re using an app called Principle to display a lot of the screens. Much of the design and the development, we’ve used a product called Sketch App. We also leveraged several Google products like Drive.

For development, it will be an open source stack, mostly in languages like React on the frontend, NodeJS in the middle tier, and then MySQL on the backend and probably some Java. There’s going to be specific developer skillsets in Swift, which is the iOS development language, and Android for the Android mobile app.

What is the team dynamic?

We’ve interacted with 7–8 people all with different competencies. All the way from Ignacio [CEO, BairesDev] to a full-time UX designer, as well as a part-time project manager who handles some of the back office work. We spoke to a couple of them more frequently than the rest.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

A former colleague of mine, who is the VP of engineering at a company in San Francisco, has a staff of 30–40 in BairesDev. He spoke very highly of Ignacio and the entire company and walked me through their value proposition and a number of reasons why they have such an investment with BairesDev. Several of his points were differentiators to me in terms of other shops I’ve worked with in the past. When the opportunity came to start this company, and start building an application, they were one of the first people I called.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $60,000–$70,000 in 3–4 months. We have a budget going into the next 2 years somewhere around $500,000–$750,000 in development costs. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in September 2017 and the work is ongoing.

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

I’ve been very happy with the results. The speed to market on getting resources was as fast as I thought it would be. It exceeded my expectations. We had a very transparent process of getting resumes and were able to communicate directly and interview the candidates.

We had our UX designer participating in things even outside of what he typically does. He would take our screens and prototypes and do some user testing with them. We don’t have the results from a functioning product to know that quality, but from a UX designer perspective, we’re very happy with the work completed. Ultimately, we’re going to know if it was successful when and if we’re able to raise the money to build it. The kind of screens and the prototype that they built will be kind of front and center in that process; it could be a big part of the equation in terms of success or failure where we go.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

We ran the whole team on Atlassian products, which is the combination of JIRA and HipChat for communication. We gave them access to our email as well. I had some issues communicating with some candidates that we would interview in the process. We were able to identify those quickly and found candidates that were a better fit from a communication perspective. Once the project was up and running, we were very happy with the expertise and the fundamentals that the project manager and the UX designer brought to the table. They are very fluent in running projects and how to communicate back and forth to stakeholders on a recurring and iterative basis so that there’s no long periods of time without feedback and detail and questions. We’re always in the loop on the status of the project.

The timezone local to Chicago with English speaking resources was also a huge value-add. They don’t treat themselves as an offshore or outsource development shop. They really pitch themselves as augmentation that is part of the team, the product, and the culture.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the primary motivators and differentiators that I saw was their culture that they are team members of ours. I have not seen that in my career working with other offshore development shop models. That and the fact that we’re allowed to interview and screen the candidates, has been great.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They tend to get a lot of candidates from all over South America. A good chunk of the people that we interviewed and talked to seemed to be working from home. We don’t have any problems with that, but it caused a lot of requirements to communicate strictly over a voice over IP protocol. We were doing a lot of interviews over Skype, for which I needed to be on a hard-wired phone. Oftentimes, I don’t think that shop was set up to do that and they were potentially reluctant to let them use their mobile phones. At times, there was a little bit of breakdown in terms of the quality of those conversations because we were using things like Skype on older, different phones, and operating systems. That’s the only improvement I can point to.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and managing director for R/GA in Latam, a company that was founded 40 years ago and is part of a holding group with 20 offices and 2,000 employees at a global level. We provide marketing, communication, and technology consulting, among other services. We are the developers of Nike+, which is Nike’s running system.

What challenge were you trying to address with BairesDev?

For this particular engagement, developers from BairesDev worked on a platform we developed for a client. It was an internal management platform for the end client’s buyers, clients, and points of sale in Buenos Aires, and was deployed to the rest of Argentina thereafter.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were flexible in providing resources that were at the same level of our own engineers. They integrated with the rest of the team quickly, and worked in our own offices.

They used JavaScript for the frontend, along with other typical web technology stacks for both iOS and Android development.

What is the team dynamic?

For one of the projects, they assigned 3–4 resources, but for others, they mostly provide staff augmentation.

How did you come to work with BairesDev?

We’ve used them for 5 years as an outsourcing company. They recruited candidates to have them hired as full-time employees. Afterwards, we started using them as vendors as an alternative for other projects that required more flexibility.

How much have you invested in them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on this particular project from 2014–2015, but our relationship is ongoing.

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

Their flexible structure allows us to use talent that would otherwise be very difficult or expensive to acquire. They’ve been able to fulfill our expectations, and if we don’t like 1 of the developers, we’re able to change them. Their resources are fast, and as a staff augmentation partner, they’ve responded really well without any issues or effects on our timeline.

How did BairesDev perform from a project management standpoint?

There are expectations on both sides of the relationship. They are able to meet all of our expectations while maintaining the flow of the relationship. Their resources are assigned, and then we have the final responsibility. They base their skills on our requirements, which are really good. They’re flexible in extending periods and looking for nontypical resources, which has made for an overall positive relationship.

Generally, they have a low rotation in terms of project managers, which saves us from having to start completely over.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their response times and ability to always have someone we can call are great. If there is a developer who doesn’t fit our mold, we’re able to change them out. They have a series of online exams used to have a standardized filter of developer profiles.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have high standards. The initial phase in which they bring several candidates can be somewhat tiring, so they could benefit from tuning this area a bit. I would like for this process to be easier, but I’m not sure if that’s possible.