Case Study
Scaling Up From 10 To 40 Developers In Less Than A Year
Tailor-build Team for a Digital Health Platform
Scalac’s tailor-built team worked with the Client to streamline and scale its next-generation consumer digital health platform.
This placed the company in a strong position to embrace the challenges of a post-COVID world, in which many people have renewed their commitment to health and wellbeing.
The Client
The company is a healthcare company located in the USA. Its personalized platform provides data-driven information and recommendations, all with a view to helping users improve health outcomes and decrease costs.
Among other features, users can set personalized daily goals, receive recommendations, and are incentivized to maintain progress with rewards.
Our Client believes in giving individuals greater control over their health. It provides a rich experience of recommendations and tailored information based on specific user data.
More than twenty million consumers currently access their platform.
They provide a host of services, including personalized recommendations, rewards, coaching, health monitoring tools, a lively community, and content promoting healthy lifestyles.
What Challenges Was The Client Facing?
The Client needed qualified Scala engineers who were experienced in functional programming to support the engineering capabilities of our internal team.
Before partnering up with Scalac, the Company was facing the following three main challenges:
- A need for assistance in driving ongoing innovation to policies, programs, and service delivery.
- Difficulties navigating the distinction between scaling its platform over the long term and making routine software updates.
- The partial absence of an effective, long-term recruitment strategy for accessing the best possible talent able to thrive in their tech stack.
Backend Custom Tech Stack
- Scala
- Play
- Akka
- React
- Persistence with Mongo and Postgres
- RabbitMQ (messaging)
Frontend Custom Tech Stack
- React.js
- Next.js
- Redux
- Nx.dev
- GraphQL
- Apollo
- StyledComponents
- Energon-React
Why Did the Client Choose Scalac?
One of our other Clients referred us as a Scala Development experts. As a dedicated development and outsourcing company, Scalac could provide developers with expertise and skills to build complex systems infrastructure that the Company didn’t have the time or resources to create internally.
The expectation by leveraging a partially outsourced approach was that the Client could scale more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively.
The Client hired Scalac to provide Scala engineers to support their internal capabilities. Scalac specializes in Scala development, but we’ve provided the Client with all the support they needed, including React engineering support.
Scalac is in charge of prescreening candidates before the Company interviews
them just as they would an internal hire.
We’ve found that the quality of the engineers they’ve sent us has been much higher than we generally see from the previous applicants for our full-time jobs.
Head of Prevention & Wellness, Healthcare Technology Company
What Solutions Did Scalac Implement?
After an initial consultation period, Scalac delivered the following solutions:
- Built a dedicated team of outsourced developers, refining and bolstering internal recruitment processes.
- Helped foster a clear understanding of which functions to handle in-house and which to outsource., taking responsibility for the latter.
- Provided a variety of specialized technical, managerial, leadership and financial inputs needed to support scaling.
- Delivered access to a strong, multi-disciplinary team with a multitude of skill sets that was available for immediate work and consultation.
- Implemented a long-term partnership for scaling up and developing new features required to remain competitive in a fast-moving market.
- Laid a foundation for ongoing technical support and technical guidance with fast response times.
What is the team composition?
The main point of contact is Scala’s project manager. Initially, the Client
started with 10 contractors from Scalac, but we’ve since scaled our team to 40 engineers.
How Does The Client Rate Scalac’s work?
Clutch Verified review
How did Scalac perform from a project management standpoint?
Quoting our Client:
Scalac has done great in terms of project management. They’ve provided a project manager to us to help coordinate with the engineers, and if ever there’s a language barrier issue, they’ll step in and help resolve it.
Outside of that, they’ve been very transparent and communicative in terms of finding additional contractors for us. To give you an idea, we started with 10 contractors to see how they would work. They’ve all done great, so we’ve ramped up to 40 contractors.
We keep telling them that we’ll take as many contractors as we can from them, so they’re always on the lookout for more to provide us. In that regard, they’re probably the best staff augmentation firm I’ve ever worked with.
We primarily communicate through email and Slack, but we’ve also given them accounts in our environment. We really do treat them as a part of our team.
How Did Scalac Handle the Recruitment Process?
After initially helping to build a core group of five developers, the Client was so impressed with Scalac’s work that it asked for its client-side team to be extended.
As a result, Scalac designed a custom recruitment process that enabled the Company to add over thirty developers in less than a year.
The recruitment process was multifaceted and included data gathering, screening, interviewing, and additional training. Ongoing communication and feedback from Scalac meant that the Client was able to employ people with the right skills and mindset, not just relevant skills.
In a similar vein, Scalac’s hiring process was based on a nuanced understanding of the Client’s tech stack and the specific proficiencies required for individuals to work effectively within it.
At Scalac, we’re incredibly happy with the fact that the outcomes delivered have led to an ongoing partnership when it comes to recruitment. Among other capacities, Scalac occupies the role of consultant and is regularly asked to provide in-depth information about the healthcare labor market and hiring opportunities.
Originally published at https://scalac.io on October 10, 2022.
