Leading sales, Martyna had a chance to get to know most of our clients on top of having spoken to hundreds of people from the eMobility environment. She’s gained an in-depth understanding of what’s desired or unwanted in the business and she’s now applying that knowledge in her everyday job.

Martyna Wajda

As the digital era continues to evolve, strategic IT partnerships will only become more important. For small to mid-sized companies, in particular, the benefits of having a tech company play a partner role, whereby IT specialists can actively collaborate with the wider team and help inform business and technology strategy, can be considerable.

But it’s not just a one-way street. Forming a mutually beneficial partnership with an innovative technology company, like 

 , can help optimize both organizations. Quality collaborations can help improve everything from how a company communicates right through to profitable revenue, in short, enabling both companies to achieve more than they ever could going it alone.

The key to any successful partnership is, first and foremost, finding the right company to join forces with. At the very least, an IT partner needs to be able to serve your business' needs, ensure optimum IT performance, and has the ability to meet any emerging challenges head-on. Our guide to choosing the 

 for your business outlines exactly what you should look for and what to expect from such collaborations. But for now, let’s take a look at four key ways a strategic IT partnership can be beneficial for everyone involved.

Two heads are better than one, so the phrase goes. So it stands to reason that three, four, five, six etc heads are even better, especially when it comes to implementing long-standing IT systems. But just as an IT partnership can effectively deliver any technical know-how, don’t underestimate the value any business acumen can offer in return. Pooling and sharing resources can be a highly effective way of advancing both parties on the path to innovation and success.

Like any relationship, the more time and effort that goes into it, the more fruitful it becomes. For an IT company to get a deep understanding of a company’s systems and operations, as well as any technological challenge it faces now (and could potentially) takes a considerable amount of commitment, time, and trust.

A sustained, committed partnership offers, on one side, the benefit of on-going, innovative work and, for the other, the delivery of the most effective IT systems. But more than this, a long-term partnership offers both companies the opportunity to get to know each other’s business and build quality relationships with the people who are the driving force behind it, making it easier to work together and quickly adapt to any challenges.

For any reputable technology partner, the success of your business will become as important to them as it is to you. A quality IT company, like Solidstudio, will be creative in its approach to driving innovation to achieve the most effective technology systems for your business' needs. This can mean not only helping a company achieve a whole new level of digital transformation but keeps IT specialists abreast of all the latest cutting-edge technology and at the top of their game.

The cornerstone of any successful relationship is communication, and business partnerships are no different. In order to achieve highly successful collaborations, regular conversations are a must. Here questions such as are objectives being met and if there are new challenges that need to be addressed can be discussed, and key goals and timelines kept on track.

Partnerships offer a great opportunity to practice and develop good communication skills, which are invaluable in business. Scheduling in time for both parties to step back and measure performance at regular intervals can only strengthen a partnership as it moves forward.

For more information on how a tech partnership can benefit your business, get in touch with the Solidstudio team!

Learn about the benefits of technology partnership - does together means better?

True cost of software outsourcing - how can you meassure this?

After founding Solidstudio, Pawel was an originator in terms of pursuing expertise in eMobility. With the build-up of a solid knowledge-base on industry’s needs & wants, he now keeps a close eye on products’ development. He’s also hugely responsible for the business’ side and designs the business models for our products.

Paweł Małkowiak

Software development outsourcing is the term used when a technology company is hired to create and build a business’ IT systems. A hugely beneficial practise, outsourcing in this way can help small to mid-sized companies in particular not only gain a competitive edge, but significantly reduce costs and implementation time.

While the premise of software development outsourcing is quite simple and its benefits clear, finding a reputable company to deliver such services can be a challenge. Google ‘software development companies’ and the result is seemingly endless pages of vendors offering their services at competitive rates. So how do you know which of those developers will properly fulfill your needs and offer true value for money?

Knowing what to expect from a vendor, from both a service level and cost perspective is vital before choosing the best 

 for your business. There are a number of considerations that will help you identify a reputable software development company, all of which are detailed here, plus how much you should expect to pay for such services.

Software development outsourcing: What to consider

Outsourcing software development involves a significant level of trust from both parties to work successfully. More often than not, a business will have to share confidential and valuable data in order to get the IT systems it requires. Any reputable software development company will understand this and offer a service that not only meets a brief from technological perspective, but a human one too. To find a tech partner who will do just that, look out for vendors with the following attributes:

 – A reputable software development company will be sympathetic to their line of work being highly specialised, and will therefore help clients form requirements, ask difficult question and make sure all parties are completely clear on the business’ objectives

 – Making sure a software development company has the right skillset to fulfill technical requirements is vital, as any gaps in knowledge could lead to costly delays. A close look at a vendor's portfolio will give a good indication of whether the team possesses the correct skills, across the most relevant technology.

 – The more senior a team, the more business-orientated it is. A good way to gauge experience levels is to look at ‘Meet the team’ pages and see what percentage senior developers account for.

 – While a project might need multiple developers input, it’s a good idea to choose a vendor who will assign developers to one project at a time. Not only will the sense of ownership help increase a developer’s output, but means each project has one firm point-of-contact.

 – Any software development company worth it’s weight will help a client see past the ‘now’ with any technical requirements, and offer the expertise to scale a project up or down as needs and situations change.

 – Developers are in high demand globally, but that shouldn’t mean waiting long periods for projects to get off the ground. At Solidstudio, development can start in a matter of weeks, with the initial planning phase up and running in a matter of days.

 – A quality software development company will stay in regular contact with clients for a project’s entirety. At Solidstudio, weekly and biweekly calls are standard practise. Clients are also invited to join internal communication channels and are welcome to dial into daily standups if they so wish.

 – The last but one of the most important considerations of all. A quality software development company will be completely transparent at every stage of a project’s progression. From planning and implementation, to costs and potential issues, any work completed should be visible to the client, at any point. Be wary of talk of or signs of further outsourcing from within the vendor – this is also a major red flag.

Software development outsourcing: How much should it cost?

So now you know what to look for in an outsourcing software development company, the next big question is how much should it cost? Giving an exact figure here is almost impossible for two main reasons; firstly, because every project will have different requirements. And secondly, creating a digital product is a process of constant change, and therefore an estimate provided at initial contact stages could easily change (sometimes significantly) as the project evolves.

In order to get a realistic estimate, the best first step is to spend a good amount of time considering what your product requirements are and drawing it up into a project specification document. This should broadly outline how the required software should function, in both the short and long term, which will help vendors understand what level of work and seniority is required. It will also help avoid any misunderstandings in the development cycle and costly delays.

After sharing this document and an initial consultation with your chosen vendor before any work is carried out, you should expect an estimate based on an initial assessment of how much work is involved and the level of seniority it will require. Solidstudio has a track record of smaller end-to-end software development projects over a three-month period, as well as bigger, on-going projects and so can quickly offer very accurate initial estimates. These would include costs for:

It is worth reiterating costs can (and almost certainly will) change as a project evolves. Be wary of low estimates, cheaper estimates don’t necessarily offer the best value, and can often include hidden costs that soon add up. Reputable software development outsourcing companies will be completely transparent when it comes to costs, keeping clients abreast of any changes, and ensuring to check before undertaking new work that might add to the bill.

 is often best suited to IT outsourcing. This pricing method means fees are configured based on the amount of time spent on a project, combined with the cost of the effort (materials) used in the process. Solidstudio works to an hourly rate structure of $40-75, depending on the level of seniority required, with management overlay kept to a minimum.

For more information on software development outsourcing, or for an estimate, contact the Solidstudio team!

True cost of outsourcing - how can you meassure this? Read our article to find out.

Software development outsourcing: what to consider and how much does it cost?

Algorithm solving skills as best recruitment factor?

Recruiting developers for software house.

As a developer with 7 years’ worth of corporate experience, I have witnessed many different approaches in recruiting staff for software engineer positions. And these differing approaches apply to both sides of the table - as a candidate and recruiter. Obviously, every recruitment process is different, but I’ve tended to see a standard procedure of starting from only language-related, theoretical questions, to creating working, well designed solutions for assessments and ending with white-board algorithm solving problem sessions.

The candidate side is pretty straightforward; I came to this conclusion after several different meetings with startups, privately-held small business and leading technology giants. I’m pretty sure there are only two tasks for the candidate to concentrate on - presenting yourself in the best possible way and trying to obtain as much information about the company and the position.

Things get trickier on the other side of the table. I’ve always wanted to model how this process looks, but it’s not as straightforward as it sounds. Sure, there has to be plenty of discussion in it, but every interview is different and you can’t always stick to a script. And if you want to make changes to the recruitment procedure, these changes often have to go through an approval process to ensure they’re going to improve the experience. This can take time as it’s down to your employer, not you personally. However, I’m pretty sure that every recruiter (including myself) has thought, at some point, that if they were in charge they would do things differently.

Concentrating on this last sentence, we’re now getting closer to the key point of this article. For the last few months we’ve been running a 

 and we’ve been searching for new talents for our company. And this search left us pondering the question of: how do we create a good recruitment process which allows us to find the best candidates with the best skills who can start without any delays? The main conundrum was that we wanted to invest as little time as possible without a drop in quality and we wanted to find employees who could easily adapt to the ever changing work environment of a small software house.

Personally, I’m a fan of the whiteboard algorithm problem solving approach. Once a candidate passes it you can be pretty sure about their expertise. You can also understand their skills and ability to learn, not just their knowledge in a certain technology stack - which is a huge benefit from the point of view of a small company. An added bonus is that preparing for such a process involves solving a lot of similar tasks, so we can find a person that is not overly-attached to their code, which is another tick in the right box.

The more we thought about whether this was the best way forwards for our recruitment process, the more red flags we uncovered. All the advantages mentioned above certainly remain relevant, but there are other scenarios and questions to consider.

The ideal situation, of course, is to have a project with a starting date which is way off in the future so that you have time to find the right people for it. Projects that are not connected to any specific systems and allow you to use any technologies and tools you want. Green fields at its bests.

Even if the start date for a project is limited, you can still consider it as an achievable and fun project to work on. More often than not, new joiners need to adapt to an existing platform and this requires prior knowledge of the technologies being used. Moreover, the faster the individual is able to integrate and deliver, the more beneficial it is for the software house.

This demand for new starters to hit the ground running means that there’s no argument as to whether they should already be strongly coupled with existing frameworks. From a software house owner’s perspective, I simply can’t afford to recruit coders who may be highly talented, but come with no knowledge of SpringBoot and AWS platform. I’m sure that they could learn these platforms ridiculously quick, but there would still be a period of downtime to achieve this. When talking with potential clients, we like to differentiate ourselves from big companies by demonstrating our pace of delivery as our major selling point. And we can only provide this by recruiting employees with the ability to build production-ready solutions using all the tools and frameworks readily available.

After endless discussions, we came up with the following recruitment process. We decided that the first thing we need to understand is the applicant’s specific technology and language knowledge first. And by this we mean talking about theoretical discussions regarding Java, Spring, AWS and all that they entail. We call it stage one as our expectations here are not very high, a decent knowledge is enough and the candidates answers, at this point, are not going to guarantee them the job.

The next step - stage two - is the most important. It involves us preparing a coding task in a strongly technical domain. What we’re looking for here is for the candidate to solve the task with the best possible algorithm. Naturally, we’re also looking for a conscientious approach to code quality, test coverage, build system, logging etc. The correct usage of certain data structures along with the algorithms implemented are the key factors we look for when deciding if we will make a job offer. As we are also looking at the time factor when it comes to examining the solved task, we ask for the applicant to either provide a test suite that demonstrates the solution’s performance or we hold brief talks with the author about it prior to reviewing the code.

Finding the perfect balance is the issue we are still struggling with. We have changed our approach several times already and whilst it shows progress, I’m sure the current one will go through many changes yet. My main regret with this recruitment process is the possibility that we may miss out on great coders who simply don’t meet the demands of our specific frameworks.. I am hoping solidstudio.io will grow enough that, in the future, we will be able to give said coders a space to become the programmers we want. On the other hand, the major benefit is that a candidate that passes the process is ready to get started on day one with the tools and frameworks already in use. This allows us to keep pace with competitors – if not outpace them – and deliver a better experience to our clients.

For all algorithm solving questions and whiteboard session enthusiasts, we all need to remember that only delivered ideas matter. And these must be delivered with strong domain, architecture and framework knowledge.

Approach to recruiting talents for software house.

T&M contract in IT outsourcing: How it works

The ever-evolving nature of software development can often make setting a fixed price for work impossible. Much like the IT products being developed, pricing models need to offer a high level of flexibility for if and when requirements change. This is the main reason time and materials contracts have risen in popularity in recent years. Often referred to as T&M, a time and materials contract model works out the overall cost of a project based on the time spent on the work carried out, plus any materials used.

But how does that translate in the world of IT outsourcing? In this article, we take a close look at exactly how a time and materials contract works, plus what types of projects it is best suited to.

Time & Materials contract: How does it work?

A time and materials contract is based on the number of hours a developer spends on a project (according to a pre-arranged hourly rate), plus any materials (eg software licenses) used for the duration of said work.

The key to a time and materials contract is flexibility – it can evolve alongside a project, and easily be adjusted as and when requirements change. The level of control this type of agreement offers to both clients and vendors is what makes it such an appealing option.

A highly agile-orientated workflow, time and materials contracts can be hugely beneficial, ensuring cost-efficiency, transparency, and timely delivery of the task in hand. However, this type of agreement requires a level of trust from both parties in order for it to work successfully. Vendors must be transparent when it comes to time spent on a project and regularly update clients with costs incurred, and clients must always be present to discuss requirements and approve decisions, as well as pay the agreed rate. Needless to say, picking the 

In practise, a T&M contract will include milestones of product delivery, all of which are defined and agreed by both parties. Here’s how a time and materials model works at Solidstudio:

The size of the project is initially assessed, before being broken down into small deliverables, each of which will be estimated and carried out subject to a client’s approval.

Developers, UX designer and Project Managers at Solidstudio work at fixed hourly rates of between $40-75, based on their level of expertise, skills and qualifications. Staff best suited are assigned to a project, with the hourly rate communicated to the client before any work is undertaken. Each month, a worklog and invoice according to the specific developer’s hourly rate is sent to the client.

Solidstudio works in agile iterations of two weeks, presenting progress to clients at the end of each iteration. In addition to this, the Solidstudio team also hosts recurring planning sessions with clients to track and measure performance.

Time & Materials contract: When should it be used?

While it might seem like a time and materials contract is the perfect pricing model, it’s not always the best solution. As a general rule, time and materials contracts are most suited to projects, where the scope of the project is initially hard to define or can be subjected to a change. T&M is perfect for when there is no clearly finalized product, and when there is no easy way to divide the project into smaller parts. This contract type lends itself in particular to:

Projects with undetermined or vague specifications

Start-up businesses, with no exact, predefined goal

Projects that need to quickly react to market trends

Outsourcing a development team to work side by side with the internal IT department

Whatever software development you might require, it’s always best to check all pricing options available. For more information on time and materials contracts and how they work, contact the Solidstudio team.

Pros and cons of Time & material vs fixed price contracts.

The power of tech partnership

14 MAY 2020 • 4 MIN READ