Writing Code for Tech Companies – Are you crazy?
I talk about the traditional software development company and how we try to fix some of the dilemmas customers have seen over the years
When we think of a Software Development Company, many of us have good and bad experiences.
There are big guys and there are small guys. You get different advantages & disadvantages with each.
Before I started Engine Lab Software, I would have worked for and with a software development company or two in my time.
Back in the day, everything had to be speced out to the last and God help you if you wanted to make a change or backtrack on a feature. That was all well and good in a time when the business ruled and the customer had to take whatever was given to them.
Now, it’s a different world and the customer determines what the business should be offering or else they go the way of the Dodo.
Companies are more agile now and are constantly releasing new features and backtracking on older features to reach a product market fit. The successful ones move fast with their customer’s feedback and evolve their offering until they have that “Must Have” product.
And so, the software development company has to be more flexible and agile in what they offer. You cannot tie a company down to a huge, rigid specification when everybody knows that this is going to change once the product is released into the market. This is agile, and most people know about it now. When I started Engine Lab Software, this was one of the core premises of our business. We came from the product world and understood that this is the way our customers wanted things to be.
We start small with them and keep on developing features as the company evolves. We don’t tie them down to massive specs but start with a deliverable product and take it from there. It’s the way to go unless you want some very frustrated customers who are out of patience & money.
Frustrated Business Owner
Another thing I noticed was that there was an awful lot of space being taken up by these consultant developers. All some customers want is to have their expensive software developers on site in front of them so they can see what’s going on and track the significant premium they are paying. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. You’re paying a massive amount of money over here and feel that you need to have these guys in front of you to see what’s going on. That’s fair enough.
As I mentioned in plenty of blog posts, we built Engine Lab Software with a diverse team of developers located here in Ireland & also across the globe. We keep a healthy percentage of our development (30%) here in Ireland to manage the projects and our valued customers, but we also have teams of talented developers around the world who have worked with us for years and are top class. We started with a small team that I trusted from Ireland, UK, India & Bulgaria.
That has grown as we took on guys we worked with before or were recommended by our team. That’s the way it is in 2016. You cannot get a huge team of top class developers in Ireland and so you either compromise your quality or build a global team. We built our global team with one premise. Project delivery & customer satisfaction is everything. We ensure projects are not impacted at all by keeping the majority of our operations in Ireland. Everything is managed from here & that’s the way it will always be. That’s the way it has to be to make the blend work.
The fact that we have this blend means that we also offer cost savings over our competitors. It’s not everything but it certainly helps when our customers see what they’re getting for their money.
Software development outsourcing is a great alternative to trying to do everything in house. There’s no point in a company thinking they can be specialists at everything. They need to open up to outsourcing certain activities like software development. I witnessed what’s good and what could be better about the business. We saw what could be improved in the industry and are building a business around that. We haven’t fixed everything yet but we’re getting there!
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