Casino and gambling

About the client

Since its inception in 2014, the client has successfully garnered a loyal user base of over 7.5 million individuals. The company was to enter a more competitive and economically developed UK market, necessitating swift action to establish a development team, delineate primary objectives, and formulate initial processes for the new venture.

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO), aimed to build a team of professionals with a similar mindset while simultaneously supporting Ukrainian IT specialists.

Challenges

We were approached with a critical assignment to swiftly build a team of engineers, comprising five pivotal positions: team leads, seniors, and two to three individuals for each role. The challenge was to assemble a team that could accomplish a complex task with an unconventional approach while maintaining the highest level of each team member’s expertise and appropriate code quality.

The vacancies we needed to fill:

• Lead React Native Engineer
• Middle Next.js Engineer
• Senior React Native Engineer
• Lead Node.js Engineer

Engineering Lead positions had to be exclusively based in Europe, and other engineers for this project had to be located in Ukraine. Given the highly specialized nature of the project, which involves gambling and poker, it is essential that the engineers possess the necessary skills and experience to excel in this domain. Therefore, it is mandatory that the engineers be ready to work in this area and have prior experience.

Qualified engineers were needed for a long-term on a project basis.

Project stack: GCP, Firebase, Cloud Functions, NodeJS, FireStore, GitHub Actions, CI/CD, React, React Native Animations, Storybook, Unit Testing with Jest, Web Sockets, NextJS, TypeScript, Bootstrap, SCSS, MobX State Tree, GitHub Actions.

Hiring Process

We got an urgent request, requiring the complete assembly of a team within a week’s time. The manager promptly initiated the necessary actions to achieve this goal. Furthermore, strong engineers were made available for selection, with at least one proven engineer for each position.

Despite being very limited in time, the first team of 6 engineers was assembled at lunchtime the next day.

• The first stage (test task) was an automated online testing process, after passing which one could proceed to the next stage of selection. The allocated time for completion was 1 hour.
• The second stage (technical selection) consisted of expert questions related to the assumed position and responsibilities. Based on the results of the first two stages, the best engineers moved on to the next level of selection. Thus, the client selected the most qualified candidates.
• The third stage was a programming home task that needed to be completed within 8 hours.
• The fourth stage was an individual interview, lasting 1 hour, to discuss the completed tasks.

Following our thorough selection process, we were able to offer highly skilled specialists who exceeded our expectations in terms of quality.

The customer representatives with whom we interacted expressed pleasant surprise at the affordability of the developers we offered.

The client guaranteed a prompt start to work, which was in line with the initial request made at the start.

With Upstaff’s assistance, the first three employees were able to commence with the project within two weeks of the client contacting us.

Outcome and business Impact

After the refactoring and upgrade performed by the Upstaff team, web casino was able to handle 5x players simultaneously

The company was able to enter new markets (UK)