Frequently Asked Questions

Got Questions? You’re Not Alone.

• What’s the difference between Localshoring™ and contracting a developer?
  Contracting or hiring a developer involves integrating a developer into your organization while you manage the developer and the project life cycle throughout the software development process. Localshoring™ is a team development effort managed by SEQTEK’s product owners, which involves SEQTEK taking on the responsibility of delivering the custom software product, thus leaving you to manage the outcome, NOT the process. This frees up time for the internal team and management to focus on the business and its current workload. Localshoring™ is our way of effectively managing, communicating, and delivering your software project.  Digital transformation models require a high degree of detail, process, and delivery.  Localshoring™ helps take time, management, and delivery off the internal team and help deliver the outcome rather than help provide more people.
  

• Does SEQTEK use an Agile Development Methodology?
  Yes, we use a modified Agile Development Lifecycle, which allows us to work with you through our Product Owner/Business Analyst program. This approach is a self-sufficient and cross functional workflow that keeps everyone on the same page.  With check-ins every two weeks that include working code, we demonstrate progress while allowing you to focus on your business. This helps us work efficiently and maximize output for the least amount of effort.  We don’t like surprises and neither do our customers.  With our close communication process inside of Agile we have a way to measure success and improve on any needs that change.  Scope creep comes up in every project.  We manage the process in a way that keeps us aimed towards the MVP or Minimum Viable Product.  This allows us to minimize risks that are attributed to going over time and budget. 

• What is your development life cycle?
  Our process for each project consists of the same three basic steps: Discover, Develop and Deploy. Discovery allows us to understand the end goal for the project.  Once we know what the business is trying to accomplish, we work backwards to find a good starting point.  We then break the project into phases and commit to each phase.  Bad requirements gathering is the top reason that causes software development projects to be considered a failure.  Therefore, we give a strong focus to the technical and business requirements.  Software development is a cycle of continual development, testing and deployment within our secure environment—automated using GitHub paired with AWS or Azure. Every two weeks, the product owner on our team completes a review within our staging environment of what was done by the team so that our customers receive full transparency into what is accomplished. Once the initial development is complete, we engage with the customer for a full User Acceptance Testing process, then our team deploys to production. Initial development starts by moving code from our development area to a staging area where ongoing user testing is done. After an initial production deployment, we can deploy to production every two weeks or earlier, depending on the organization’s strategy and what our customers prefer.

• What are the costs associated with Localshoring?
  Localshoring has a higher upfront cost with us taking on more risk being responsible for the outcome, and a lower long term cost due to the completion and delivery without the ongoing maintenance that is typically incurred with internal development. If your company hires three developers and you manage the software development process, your company is out the cost of three developers and in addition requires more internal time for someone to work with the business unit, manage the team, and be responsible for the outcome.  Localshoring™ development is a team effort within SEQTEK, including a product owner/business analyst that specialties in gathering good requirements and communicates those goals to the rest of the team. Sounds easy? The number one attributed reason to failed projects is poor requirements gathering. Most organizations require software developers to gather requirements. However, most software developers will tell you that is not their strength. Software developers are great at writing code and solving problems. Gathering good requirements for a project demands someone who specializes in this area and investment for good requirements pays dividends throughout the project to help it stay on track.  Any number of developers, UI/UX designers, QA/testers, CI/CD engineers or systems engineers could be involved depending on the project need. As an example, the project may have two full-time developers and then a fractional tester and a fractional designer and at the beginning and end of the project we would pull in systems engineers to build out the cloud deployment. Whereas internally your company may attribute only three developers to your project, for a Localshoring™ project, that average would most likely be three and a half to four contractors. So, we acknowledge that during a project our costs are going to be higher than internal development. However, and this is a major advantage to our team development, since our teams grow and shrink and disappear as needed, our costs are finite. In fact, we are so sure of this, we offer a guarantee for our delivery of completed code. Additionally, internal development teams tend to have lingering support work on products that are delivered. Obviously this is a generalization, however we see it often enough, that we feel comfortable pointing it out. For a SEQTEK project, when we are done, we must be done. Therefore, the testing, deployment and delivery looks different to you. Our product deliveries must be a complete set of work since we won’t be there tomorrow “to just do one more thing.”

• Do you develop for the cloud?
  Yes. Moving to the cloud has played an important role for every organization’s digital transformation strategy.  Cloud development is an integral part of SEQTEK’s development specialties. We have extensive experience in AWS – Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.  

  AWS – Amazon Web Services is the largest cloud provider in the world.  SEQTEK has been a certified AWS partner since 2015.  We have experience in AI, Machine Learning, and highly scalable applications with big data using the AWS platform. Some of the tools we have used inside of AWS include Virtual Private Cloud, EC2, AWS Data Transfer, Simple Storage Service, DynamoDB, Elastic Compute Cloud, AWS Key Management Service, AmazonCloudWatch, Simple Notification Service, Relational Database Service, Route 53, Simple Queue Service, and CloudTrail. 

  Microsoft Azure is the fastest growing cloud provider and utilizes its current market share to its advantage. We have partnered with companies working in several of Microsoft Azures tools that includes AI + Machine Learning, Analytics, Blockchain, Compute, Containers, Databases, Developer Tools, DevOps, Identity, Integration, Internet of Things, Management, Media, Microsoft Azure Stack, Migration, Mixed Reality, Mobile, Networking, Security, Storage.

  Rather it’s AWS, Google Cloud, or any other cloud solution we can help tailor your digital transformation strategy to the right solution.  We are able to use our extensive experience in a wide range of industries and organizations to help you build the fastest and most efficient strategy. Companies who are starting or currently in their digital transformation journey have an array of options and it can be overwhelming trying to find the right tools.  Usually this is done with a lot of time, meetings, and trial and error with the products.  Our ability and experience will help accelerate that plan without costing your time and energy trying to find the right solution.  

  JavaScript, Xamarin, Kotlin, C++, C#, Python, PHP, Swift, Objective-C, JAVA, HTML, Ruby, Rust, Lua, Action Script, and SQL.

• How does Localshoring™ affect project management?
  SEQTEK created the Localshoring™ concept to provide our customers an expedited development process for their custom software project over traditional methods by minimizing your management effort. We work in teams and take over responsibility for the project, delivering proven quality work in less time. Our teams are often centralized, so communication is always an added benefit to working with Localshoring™ and SEQTEK. That way, you manage an outcome, not a complex process.

• How do you bill?
  We bill monthly based on work performed. One of the advantages of Localshoring™ and custom software development is using only what’s needed—like testing or bringing in a UX designer—when it’s needed. When companies decide to offshore and outsource projects, there are many hidden and/or unnecessary costs. We fully disclose any and all costs and we don’t surprise our customers with unwarranted costs.  Our integrity is what has helped keep us in business for over 20 years.