With an access to a large pool of exceptional tech talents, Softblues can help you find the right people for your project. Our thorough team augmentations practice ensures selecting the best candidates who exactly match your business needs.
Team augmentation
This case study will describe the cooperation model of extending the
client’s tech team with the new specialists and providing adequate
further employment support and professional supervision.
Why Softblues?
All technologies covered
by our Tech Leads with 10+ years of commercial experience
£1,000,000
services insurance
14 days
full team setup
90%+
share of senior software engineers
Agile approach
project management with detailed reporting
Multicultural
London HQ, R&D in Ukraine, diversified management board
Collection of requirements for the candidate
First of all, to find the best matching talent, we conduct a detailed discussion with the client regarding the requirements for the position and project.
At the first stage, our engagement manager gathers the following basic information about the position:
- Detailed position description
- Information about the project technology, team
- Candidate’s responsibilities within the project
- Project tech stack
- Project business domain
- Project duration
- Project methodology
- Project management: daily meetings, calls with clients,
team, working schedule
Then our Tech Lead, depending on the selected technical stack, analyzes the information and possibly clarifies some additional points to ensure that we have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the ideal candidate’s profile.
The Contract and Cooperation Model
After determining the ideal candidate`s profile, we will set up a candidate search process and agree on a cooperation model with a client. The next step is signing a contract with the client.
We work with the Time and Material model most of the time, but we can consider the Cost Plus model in some cases.
Screening of the candidate
Depending on the level of skills and technical stack needed, it takes from 3 to 6 days to find the first candidates.
We deliver the fastest search results in the technologies we specialize in, such as ReactJS, React Native, VueJS, NodeJS, Python, Php, WordPress, QA, PM, BA, FA, DevOps, etc.
At a start, we check the qualified in-house candidates whose projects are finishing in the nearest future. We start the external search if there are no relevant in-house talents available. In some cases, if the client needs rapid hiring, we can refer to our partnership network, which currently includes about 20 vetted and reliable companies.
We conduct the selection and screening of candidates in three stages:
- We preliminary check the candidate’s hard and soft skills and their adherence to the position. For this phase, we select 4-5 criteria points that are most critical for the role, such as knowledge of a specific framework, library, work experience in a particular business domain.
- Interview with the in-house recruiter, English check. At this stage, we conduct a software interview, determine readiness for the start of work, clarify and work through the candidate’s expectations, and test their level of English.
- Technical interview. Depending on the requested tech stack, we will engage the specialized Tech Lead in the technical interview.
Interview with the client
Finally, we introduce the candidate to the client on the condition all internal interviews are conducted successfully. It is essential to set up interviews promptly and have a few slots available for interviews during the week at a client’s side because candidates with high profiles are very competitive and require quick feedback.
Onboarding
After the candidate is approved for the project, we conduct the appropriate onboarding in our company, which includes:
- Legal support (signing the employment contract and NDA)
- Accounting support (assigning the bookkeeping consultant)
- HR support (appointing the HR manager for handling work-related issues)
- Technical/domain leadership (appointing the highly qualified domain specialist to mentor with project-related tasks and professional development)
- Setting up the working environment: equipment, office, the software provision
Work schedule, time tracking
Before the start of the project, we agree with the client on the basic workflow:
- Working Hours
- Regular meetings
- Time-tracking regulations
- Performance reviews
- Vacations and sick-leaves policies
Our company covers all employee overhead costs for holidays, vacations, taxes, etc.
Feedback, quality control, and professional development plan
We conduct regular performance reviews and 180/360 feedback sessions with each specialist. We refer to our
clients for monthly feedback on employee engagement, HR for one-on-one meetings, and our tech/domain
leaders for professional supervision. Every specialist is expected to have an individual development plan, get
domain certifications and participate in professional education and knowledge exchange events.
In case of poor performance or negative feedback from the client, our company is responsible for replacing the specialist within the agreed timeframe.
Softblues is your top team augmentation partner
Ivan Pylypсhuk
- 14+ years of product management and delivery experience
- Owner of two e-commerce startups:
- Co-founder of Softblues
– 100K+ clients worldwide
– 3K+ enterprise clients
– Top-5 eCommerce Platforms in Eastern Europe
– Successful exit
Vit Nuzhniy
- 20+ years of experience in software outsourcing services
- Supervising multiple clients from Fortune-500
- Former Vice President of Engineering of DXC Luxoft
- Experience in supervising several hundreds of engineers at a time
- Co-founder of Softblues
Softblues benefits
Trust
-
Our rankings, cases, founder’s reputation
- We care about our reputation and continuously work on our strong brand, getting highly regarded reviews from our clients on Clutch, being TOP-10 among more than 20K web and mobile companies with JavaScript expertise.
- We have a strong employer brand as a TOP-10 IT employer in Lviv – of the main development centers in Ukraine and a TOP-10 Javascript Company in Ukraine.
- Softblues is a European software development company with offices in London, the United Kingdom, and Nordhalben, Germany, and a development center in Lviv, Ukraine.
Quality
- We have robust recruitment processes which help us hire only the best talents on the market.
- We prescreen all the candidates with our TechLeads to provide high- level compliance with the project for our partners.
- Our talents have the English level of B2+.
- We test and check candidates’ software skills and communication skills.
- All our talents have European mindsets, making them quickly involved in client projects.
Expertise
- We have solid JavaScript expertise: from React, Vue, and NodeJS practices run by dedicated Engineering Leads and reliable delivery processes to continuous people development culture and regular knowledge-sharing meetups.
- We are professionals in Agile – Scrum, Kanban, or a mixture likeScramban – run by certified PMs/Scrum masters in our team.
- We have a whole stack of expertise in-house – backend, frontend, design, QA, and PM.
Convenience
- We provide dedicated HR, Legal, and Accounting Support for every Talent.
- High hiring speed – up to a month for Senior Developer.
- We propose competitive development rates.
- We can start to cooperate without prepayment and charge once a month.
Discover our case studies
Learn about the value we bring to businesses
FieldBI – How we Helped a Field Management Startup go to the market 3x faster and become a market leader
FieldBI is a leader in innovative SaaS platforms for the advanced registry, visualization, and management of land used by numerous Ukrainian agricultural businesses.
- The product becomes profitable in 16 months
- Acknowledged as one of the TOP-20 startups in 2020
- The product reached the payback of the development team in 10 months
- Received a presidential grant from among 1,000 applicants
- The initial version of the product was finished and implemented for the first client in 6 months
- Today product helps hundreds of clients effectively manage millions of hectares of agricultural land
Parfait – How we helped to speed up launching a start-up for students recruitment 2x faster and met the budget expectations
- We’ve provided a high-quality team in a short time and started the project
- Converted ideas and wireframes to modern UI/UX solution
- Created a base with a shareable and reusable components
- We met budget expectations
AutoBI – How we Helped a Fleet Management Startup Reduce Costs by 3 Times and Attract New Investments
AutoBI is one of the most powerful fleet management platforms in Eastern Europe, including all the tools needed for fleet accounting and data analysis.
- Won two grants and attracted necessary investments
- The first version of the product finished in 6 months
- Increased the number of vehicles and total income
- Reduced development costs by three times
- The product reached the payback of the development team in 18 months
AgroTOP – How we Helped an AgriTech Startup go to the market in four-month reusing the components from the root project
AgroTop is a new generation of farm management systems for remote control of production processes in agribusiness.
- Today product helps hundreds of clients effectively manage millions of hectares of agricultural land
- The initial version of the product was finished and implemented for the first client in 4 months
- Received a Unisef grant from among 1,000 applicants
- The product becomes profitable in 8 months
Introductory meeting and project discussion
Time & cost estimation.
Agreement & SOW signed
Project kick off
United Kingdom
Germany
