Feature and integration development for a tech assessment leader

Codility is a London-based SaaS platform that helps IT recruiters and hiring managers to engage, recruit, and train software engineers. It raised $22M in a Series A round and serves 1,200+ customers, including Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, Zalando, Rakuten, Intel, BMW, and Volvo.

The product is a web application that enables recruiters to test developers’ programming skills during interviews. The system supports various programming languages and frameworks, facilitating automated assessments based on real-world scenarios and technical tasks.

Codility was looking for a partner that could handle some of the standalone projects from the development pipeline, allowing the in-house engineering team to focus on core development initiatives.

Our choice [of the development partner] was based on supported technologies, brand, and recommendations. We were familiar with Sunscrapers because of their previous projects and activity in the development community.

Wojtek Erbetowski, CTO at Codility

Our team was engaged in two projects.

Project 1: Programming challenges

Codility needed a solution that would allow recruiters to create pages with programming challenges themselves - without the need to involve the technical team - making the processes significantly easier and more efficient.

We started by carrying out a detailed scoping session and preparing a project estimation. We then built a sophisticated page editor in the admin panel that included numerous customization options to match the guidelines and requirements provided by Codility’s customers. On the user-facing side, we built interfaces that inform interviewees about the challenge, rules of participation, rewards, time range, and results displayed on a leaderboard.

Our team which consisted of a Project Manager, a frontend developer, and a backend developer executed the project following the agile methodology. The project requirements changed during its course and our team was able to easily adapt their work to these alterations.

Sunscrapers helped shape our requirements and design, implement, and test the solution. We were very satisfied with both the cooperation and its results. They delivered the solution fast and were responsive and helpful. The product was well-tested and stable, covering all initial requirements.

Wojtek Erbetowski, CTO at Codility

Project 2: Taleo integration

Codility needed to integrate its online platform with the system provided by one of the leading companies in the online recruitment sector, Taleo (owned by Oracle).

Our team faced the challenge of combining systems based on completely different technology stacks. While Taleo used legacy technologies such as XML, SOAP API, Codility has built its platform using innovative technologies such as the latest version of Python and REST API.

The other challenge was related to communication in a dispersed, multicultural team. In total among 8 engineers working in the project 1 was based in the UK, 5 in Poland, 1 in Australia and 2 in India.

We set up the project team within one week and, after 14 weeks of work, we built a middleware solution that transferred data in 2-way sync between Taleo and Codility.

The dispersed architecture of this project, which consisted of three environments (Codility, Taleo, and ours), required close cooperation, engaged communication, and constant search for custom solutions to make testing the middleware software possible. The project benefited a lot from the Project Manager’s oversight and daily communication with the Product Owner on the client’s side.

The manager was available throughout the entire process. He made sure our expectations were understood and satisfied.

Wojtek Erbetowski, CTO at Codility