VendAsta Blog » software development

VendAsta Technologies – Top 25 Up and Comers in Canada

Ches Hagen — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:46:51 +0000

Backbone Magazine said it, not us… but we think they’re right - Top 25 Up and Comes

Congrats to all at VendAsta Technologies who have helped create such an exciting and innovative company

MyFrontSteps, Homebook (for the hundreds of millions of Facebook and MySpace users), StepRep (for the millions of home service providers) are all exciting to see as they lift off

VendAsta’s consulting work has been immensely rewarding as we help big companies take advantage of modern technologies to solve today’s business challenges

What do you mean everything is working?

Ches Hagen — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:57:31 +0000

You’re a consulting company and one of your primary objectives is to satisfy your customers with software that lives up to expectations. Software the delivers the expected return on investment. Software that makes a difference. Software that works! When you hear positive feedback from your customer’s top C-level personnel on the project that you’ve been working on, it feels good. When he hears there are no known issues in the integration with back-end systems, application performance is good, actual user feedback is positive, network load is in check … he feels good. And when he says (and I’m quoting 2nd hand, but its close), “what do you mean everything is working? That’s not normal!“, it feels good.

As odd as that statement may sound, it’s exciting and motivating for the development team to hear feedback such as this. Since the first days of VendAsta Technologies in early 2008, teams of dedicated software architects, designers, developers, testers, business analysts, integration specialists (and more) have been working diligently on several projects that have really come together nicely. Some are completed, some are well on their way, and some are in early stages. All – in our opinion – are going well. We attribute our early success to teams working closely together, dedication by each team member towards a common goal, and the execution and commitment to a disciplined agile approach in software development.

I hesitate to make this post sound like a sales pitch – cause we’re blogging folks! (forgive me if it does) We’ll call it “praise to the VendAsta team” … but if you’re a company that we’ve approached (or haven’t approached) and you’re interested in speaking to us about high quality consulting work – we’d like to talk with you.

Whole lota hiring going on!

Brendan King — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:56:10 +0000

We have been doing a lot of hiring, mostly through word of mouth and the recommendations of our current team. In fact we have 5 new people starting within a month but we still have a long way to go. Hiring is one of the toughest and most crucial aspects of building a great company, culture, and team.

I suspect that in most work environments people have gone through the experience of having new team members simply show up. A new team member suddenly thrust upon them as the result of some decision made from on high. Personally it is something that I have always hated. I guess it is okay if your definition of a team is “Two or more draft animals used to pull a vehicle or farm implement”. But when your definition is as ours; ” a group of individuals who interact dynamically, interdependently and adaptively to achieve specified, shared, and valued objectives in an environment of respect and trust”, then it is ludicrous that the team shouldn’t have a say in it’s own composition.

At VendAsta we are changing our hiring process to truly value the team. Applicants will start with an initial screening and generally there will be a second Interview with an HR team unless the employee is an obvious hire and is known to the team. So once the HR team approves the applicant they will then face the real test. Lunch with the team of people they will ultimately work with.

The team will arrange a lunch or dinner with their potential new team mate. The reviews, opinions and general sentiment of the team will ultimately decide whether or not a formal offer is extended. This is good for the team and good for the applicant. Nobody wants to work with people they are not compatible with.

For the record, it’s not all just a free lunch. The team has to complete a confidential review. What they like about the applicant, what they don’t, how they see them fitting, potential conflicts or anything else they want to point out. When 90 days are up the team will revisit the hire and make recommendations.