CleverCrew

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

I am the VP of Engineering at Shannon Tech Solutions Ltd, a Media & Entertainment company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. My role covers product, platform, and the vendor partnerships that support them. We had reached a point where our internal team could not execute our roadmap fast enough without outside help.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

We had a clear product vision for our next growth phase in the Media & Entertainment market but the Web Development expertise we needed was not something we could recruit for on our timeline. An external specialist was the pragmatic answer.

What services did the company provide for your project?

Full Web Development lifecycle — discovery, architecture, development across ten sprints, integration testing, performance validation, production deployment, and a four-week hypercare period. They also produced system documentation and ran structured knowledge transfer sessions for our team.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

We shortlisted five vendors. Two were eliminated immediately based on the technical proposals. Of the remaining three, this team's Web Development approach was the most specific and evidenced — actual Media & Entertainment reference cases, not generic slides. The reference calls confirmed what the proposal described.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Thoroughly. The requirements document they produced was detailed enough that our QA team used it directly to write acceptance criteria. Every story had a defined business outcome attached. Nothing was left to interpretation, which paid dividends all the way through to testing.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Communication was proactive and well-calibrated. Technical detail for the engineering audience, executive summaries for the steering group, and risks raised with proposed mitigations rather than just problem statements. The fortnightly sprint reviews kept our stakeholders informed without pulling them into every working session.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

Yes. I had privately planned for a contingency given the integration complexity involved. None of it was needed. Final invoice came in within rounding of the approved budget and we launched on the agreed date. That outcome is less common than vendors would have you believe.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Five months post-launch: zero P1 incidents, Core Web Vitals in the green, and two enterprise clients who had been citing platform limitations in renewal conversations have since renewed without raising the issue. The system is doing what we needed it to do.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The directness. When our requirements were unclear, they said so. When our priorities were contradictory, they explained why. When a technical approach we assumed was right had significant downsides, they told us before we committed. That kind of honesty is what I actually want from a technology partner.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes. I would specifically recommend them for Web Development projects where getting the requirements right at the start is critical. That is where they earn their fees — and the downstream delivery reflects it.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

Scandia Digital AB operates in the Advertising & Marketing sector out of Gothenburg, Sweden. In my role as Head of Product Engineering I am responsible for both the technology strategy and day-to-day delivery. We hold our vendors to the same standards our clients hold us to.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Compliance requirements in our Advertising & Marketing space changed and the deadline was set by our regulator, not by us. The Blockchain Development work required was specialist enough that pulling our internal team off the product roadmap to do it was not an option.

What services did the company provide for your project?

Full Blockchain Development lifecycle — discovery, architecture, development across ten sprints, integration testing, performance validation, production deployment, and a four-week hypercare period. They also produced system documentation and ran structured knowledge transfer sessions for our team.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

We had a fixed budget and a non-negotiable timeline. Several vendors told us it could not be done. These were the ones who said it could and explained clearly why. They turned out to be right.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

The requirements process took longer than we expected but the thoroughness showed in the development phase — we had noticeably fewer mid-sprint clarifications and no major requirement changes that required rework.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

I used to chase status updates weekly on vendor engagements. This was the first time I did not have to. Updates came consistently, problems surfaced early, and the shared project board always reflected reality rather than optimism.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time. Budget was within the approved ceiling, including one scope addition we introduced mid-project that was quoted fairly and handled in parallel without affecting the main delivery stream. No surprises at invoice stage.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

The ROI case we presented to the board was intentionally conservative. We are tracking to hit the payback point in under twelve months against an eighteen-month model. The efficiency gains have exceeded the forecast, partly because the data quality the new system produces enables decisions the previous one could not support.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The fact that problems surfaced upward before they became crises. I have worked on enough vendor engagements to know that the ability to manage upward — to raise bad news early rather than bury it — is genuinely rare. This team did it consistently.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes, without reservation. I have already referred two peers in the Advertising & Marketing sector who were facing similar Blockchain Development challenges. I gave those referrals confidently because I know the experience I described was not a one-off — it reflects how they work.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

Desert Tech Ventures is a mid-size Mining & Metals business in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I joined as Head of Innovation two years ago specifically to modernise how we build and buy technology. This engagement was part of that programme.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Honestly, we had been deferring this AR/VR Development investment for eighteen months. User feedback had been consistent and our conversion data confirmed the impact. We eventually ran out of reasons to delay.

What services did the company provide for your project?

The core engagement was AR/VR Development delivery. During discovery they also provided technical consultancy that materially improved our requirements — things we would not have caught until development if they had not raised them. They also took ownership of the third-party integrations that had caused problems in previous projects.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

We had a fixed budget and a non-negotiable timeline. Several vendors told us it could not be done. These were the ones who said it could and explained clearly why. They turned out to be right.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

Honestly, better than we understood them ourselves going in. The workshops they ran surfaced assumptions we had not examined and caught three requirements that were in direct conflict with each other. Resolving those before development started saved us a significant amount of rework.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Very strong on the async side, which mattered given the time difference between Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and the delivery team. Written updates were specific and consistent, decisions got responses the same day, and nothing was dropped across a five-month engagement. That discipline is harder than it looks.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time. Budget was within the approved ceiling, including one scope addition we introduced mid-project that was quoted fairly and handled in parallel without affecting the main delivery stream. No surprises at invoice stage.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Four months live. User adoption exceeded our first-month target by around 20%. Support volume is down. Features we had deferred for years because the old architecture made them too expensive to build are now in active development. The platform opened our roadmap.

What did you like most about working with this company?

They kept the business objective visible throughout technical decision-making. I have worked with excellent engineers who lose the strategic thread as complexity increases. This team maintained a clear link between every architectural choice and the outcome we had agreed to achieve.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Absolutely. We are scoping a second engagement and I expect this to become a multi-year partnership. For anyone in the Mining & Metals space looking for serious AR/VR Development delivery, I would put them at the top of the evaluation list.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

Kiwi Cloud Solutions Ltd is a mid-size Events & Event Management business in Auckland, New Zealand. I joined as CTO two years ago specifically to modernise how we build and buy technology. This engagement was part of that programme.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Our previous vendor had left us with three years of accumulated technical debt. Delivery velocity had dropped to maybe a third of what it should have been. We needed new engineering eyes and a structured plan to dig out.

What services did the company provide for your project?

Primarily Quality Assurance & Testing, with QA and solution architecture included in scope. They owned the build end-to-end from requirements through to go-live, including three existing system integrations. Not needing to coordinate separate QA or architecture vendors was genuinely valuable.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

A peer in the Events & Event Management sector had used them for a similar Quality Assurance & Testing engagement and recommended them without qualification. Our own due diligence confirmed the picture they described. The combination of domain knowledge and delivery track record made the decision straightforward.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

The requirements process took longer than we expected but the thoroughness showed in the development phase — we had noticeably fewer mid-sprint clarifications and no major requirement changes that required rework.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Good. The sprint cadence worked well for our team. Fortnightly reviews gave us the checkpoints we needed. The one friction point — time zone overlap — was resolved after the first sprint and did not reoccur.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

Yes. I had privately planned for a contingency given the integration complexity involved. None of it was needed. Final invoice came in within rounding of the approved budget and we launched on the agreed date. That outcome is less common than vendors would have you believe.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Biggest impact: our internal team is no longer spending three days a week maintaining a platform they hated working with. That productivity is now going into building. The platform change was as much about our engineering team's quality of life as it was about the end user.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The directness. When our requirements were unclear, they said so. When our priorities were contradictory, they explained why. When a technical approach we assumed was right had significant downsides, they told us before we committed. That kind of honesty is what I actually want from a technology partner.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes, with the caveat that they are not the cheapest option and they are selective about what they take on. If price is the primary criterion there are alternatives. If you want a Quality Assurance & Testing partner in the Events & Event Management space who will actually deliver against a serious brief, this is the team.

Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.

As Managing Director, Technology at Redwood Capital Advisors, a Advertising & Marketing organisation in San Francisco, CA, USA, I manage technology investment and delivery outcomes. We make commercial decisions about technology — every project needs a credible case before it gets approved.

What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?

Our internal team was good but maxed out. The Mobile App Development work needed for this phase of the product required a depth of experience we did not have internally, and could not build in time.

What services did the company provide for your project?

Primarily Mobile App Development, with QA and solution architecture included in scope. They owned the build end-to-end from requirements through to go-live, including three existing system integrations. Not needing to coordinate separate QA or architecture vendors was genuinely valuable.

Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?

We had a fixed budget and a non-negotiable timeline. Several vendors told us it could not be done. These were the ones who said it could and explained clearly why. They turned out to be right.

How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?

The requirements process took longer than we expected but the thoroughness showed in the development phase — we had noticeably fewer mid-sprint clarifications and no major requirement changes that required rework.

How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?

Good. The sprint cadence worked well for our team. Fortnightly reviews gave us the checkpoints we needed. The one friction point — time zone overlap — was resolved after the first sprint and did not reoccur.

Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?

On time and on budget. The estimation accuracy was the part I found most impressive — they had broken the work down thoroughly enough during discovery that the forecast held throughout rather than drifting with every scope conversation. We had one change request, and it was for scope we had added ourselves.

What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?

Biggest impact: our internal team is no longer spending three days a week maintaining a platform they hated working with. That productivity is now going into building. The platform change was as much about our engineering team's quality of life as it was about the end user.

What did you like most about working with this company?

The directness. When our requirements were unclear, they said so. When our priorities were contradictory, they explained why. When a technical approach we assumed was right had significant downsides, they told us before we committed. That kind of honesty is what I actually want from a technology partner.

Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?

Yes, with the caveat that they are not the cheapest option and they are selective about what they take on. If price is the primary criterion there are alternatives. If you want a Mobile App Development partner in the Advertising & Marketing space who will actually deliver against a serious brief, this is the team.