We take pride in building long term relationships with our clients and our priorities are to always understand and anticipate their business needs well before they do. We take a hands on approach to delivery, and are never afraid to roll up our sleeves and collaborate with the business, strategists, developers, and partners alike to delivering best solutions for our clients. Here are a few words from one our long lasting friends and clients, Roman Smolgovsky, who has worked with us for over 6 years……
Roman Smolgovsky
Before choosing Coherent Solutions your company has been working with the CodeMinders team in Kiev for nearly 3 years. What made you look elsewhere?
Change in political climate. I really hope that it will improve in the near future but the current instability carries certain risks.
Was it difficult to choose a new outsourcing firm? What did you look for in your candidates?
When choosing between the candidates, we don’t have like a matrix of characteristics that we look for. Usually, we choose them by recommendation or on the basis of prior experience. These days no one just googles outsourcing firms – that would be very risky and unreliable. To evaluate the work of each candidate you would need weeks. It would take at least five weeks to estimate the level of proficiency of a certain candidate. In case of Coherent Solutions, I had prior experience of working with it and I knew that the level of proficiency was very high here.
Coherent’s team has already completed the initial phase goal: developing a reporting platform. Has the work of the team fulfilled your expectations?
Oh, yes, absolutely.
How can you evaluate the results of its work?
Very well done. Even better than what we expected. What I like about Coherent’s team is that they are very open to new things and, if necessary, they can always change the direction. They’ve got this flexibility. During the development of a product, sometimes, you need to change the direction – and the team here is always able to adjust. When you give them a new idea, they respond with great interest and quickly get engaged. Many developers on the team are working part-time but the amount of engagement is coming as if from full-time employees. I would give special thanks to Dmitry Kavtur, Vitaly Kliauzo, Dzmitry Bondar and all the other members of the team – they really pulled it off. And, of course, to Eugen Sinkevich, with whom I’ve been working for quite a while.
What are the main challenges when working with an offshore team? How do you solve them?
I would say that the main problem is the problem of interactions –and that is the client’s problem, not the team’s. When working with an offshore team, you cannot come up to it throughout the day with questions like “hey, why is this not working?” and “hey, can you show me, how does this work?” This concerns offshore teams, since, even when the team is in Texas, you can always pick up the phone and say: “Hey, Bill, so what do you got for me this time?” The time difference, which sometimes reaches 12 hours, makes it even more difficult. Also, there is what I would call “fear of the unknown.” Very often businesses have never even seen their development teams. Yes, you can do skype, but you still don’t see the people and don’t know with whom you are working with. That is why I prefer to meet the team in person. So, living in California, I have to fly this triangle – Kiev, Minsk, California. (smiles)
What are the main benefits of cooperating with Coherent Solutions?
I really like the culture and the atmosphere here. You managed to build a culture that is quite close to the one in The Valley. The design, the atmosphere, the explosion of interest… It is just like in the Valley. And the people work here on the level that you would expect from the teams in California.
What makes Eastern European developers a good choice for outsourcing software development?
This region was always known for providing good engineers. The level of talent is high and the work ethic is very good. People are willing to spend more time than expected. And the engineers from the post-Soviet countries have this, what I would call, “engineering pride” (smiles). Then, the mentality and culture is quite familiar here – and that is very important for doing business.