Case Study: Remote Development Office for Dutch E-Learning Company Studytube

Studytube is an enterprise-level education services company, headquartered in Amsterdam. It is the fastest-growing e-learning platform in Europe. The company currently boasts 250+ customers from various industries and over 500K active users. 

It has a team of 125+ employees distributed between Amsterdam and Kharkiv offices. Grid Dynamics helped Studytube to build their remote development center in Ukraine, which currently has around 40 tech specialists.

About the Project

Studytube is a solution for managing, sharing and disseminating knowledge within organizations. It combines a learning experience platform (LXP) and a learning management system (LMS). This all-in-one solution allows businesses to create a personalized training environment for their employees. 

The Challenge

The transition to a B2B solution required a technology change, and Angular appeared to be the best fit. However, the company didn’t have in-house developers with the necessary tech stack, so they had to build a team from scratch. 

Solution Provided by Grid Dynamics

At the initial stage, Grid Dynamics recruited two JavaScript developers for Studytube Kharkiv. The team soon doubled in size, but to ensure its further expansion the company decided to build their own talent pipeline. 

Grid Dynamics aided Studytube in launching their trainee school for aspiring developers. The course lasted three months, and in that time programmers mastered JavaScript and the basics of education software development. Those who showed the best progress were given an offer to join the company as full-fledged junior engineers. Many of them are now senior developers, working as tech or team leads. 

Further Team Expansion

Today Studytube Kharkiv is a coherent nearshore development center with 40+ specialists. Grid Dynamics recruitment specialists not only helped to set up the team of Angular developers but also supported the project's further growth. Over the past eight years, they brought back-end developers, UI engineers, and QA engineers to the Studytube Kharkiv team.

The company’s CTO, Stepan Suvorov, pointed out that Grid Dynamics has seasoned HR specialists, who are well-versed in technology and employee relations. This allows them to be on the same page with the client, understanding what their top priorities are.

In addition to HR support, Grid Dynamics takes care of employee onboarding, maintaining Studytube’s remote development office, as well as payroll and taxes.

Hiring Developers in Ukraine: Studytube’s Experience

If you plan to outsource your IT operations to a nearshore location, here are some know-hows from Studytube's CTO: 

• The Dutch are quite similar to Ukrainians in terms of work culture, providing an invaluable basis for cooperation between different units. Moreover, since all internal processes within the company are well established, there is a clear vision of how everything should be done. 
• It's better to opt for a unified team rather than individual contractors. When people work from different locations or even time zones it can slow down the team’s progress. Therefore, it’s better to have everyone work in the same office space. This way people don’t need to schedule a call to exchange a few words with their peers. Moreover, they can discuss important issues in person, which streamlines the decision-making process.
• Tech lead should be #1 on your hiring list. Once you find the right person for this position you can start sourcing the rest of the team. This way you not only have someone to guide all the activities in your remote office but also get an expert who can define an efficient strategy for your company's expansion on the local market.