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Case study · Communications

Plivo added 18 engineers to build PHLO

PHLO was Plivo's new microservices platform for business communications, with SDKs to build across Python, Node.js and Go. Plivo's own engineers were already committed, so assembling the team became the constraint on the roadmap. We sourced, screened and onboarded 18 engineers to build it.

  • CPaaS
  • Enterprise
  • YCombinator Alum
  • 70K+ Customers
  • US
Plivo's PHLO communications platform
Plivo's PHLO communications platform
03 Days to First Profiles
01 Year Average Contract Length
18 Engineers Placed
The Challenge

The roadmap was ready before the team was

  • Engineers across 4 stacks
  • Slow conventional recruitment
  • Freelancers missed the bar
  • PHLO roadmap deadlines

Plivo went from a YCombinator batch to serving over 70,000 customers, and PHLO was its next product. The roadmap ran across Node.js, Go, Rails and more, and there were not enough engineers to build it.

The roles needed people who could pick up an existing codebase, improve its performance, ship new functionality and set up CI/CD pipelines. Conventional recruitment was too slow, and the freelancers and agencies Plivo tried did not clear its quality or technical bar.

How We Did It

First profiles in 3 days, onboarded remotely

Plivo's PHLO dates could not wait on a conventional search. We ran the whole thing: finding the engineers, screening them, and onboarding them remotely, so Plivo's own team stayed on the product.

  1. 1

    Headcount that tracked the roadmap

    Plivo added engineers from our pre-vetted pool as PHLO needed them, without committing to permanent headcount for work that had a defined end.

  2. 2

    Set up to work remotely

    We defined the communication protocols and ramp-up steps before anyone started, so the distributed team was shipping rather than settling in.

  3. 3

    Support through the 6-month build

    We stayed on for the full 6-month project, coordinating between Plivo's team and the engineers we placed instead of handing over and leaving.

In Their Words

Flexiple helped us hire quality developers across technologies, including Node, Rails, PHP, Python, iOS and Android, in a super efficient manner.

They spent a good amount of time understanding our requirements, resulting in accurate recommendations and quick ramp-up by developers. We also found them to be much more affordable than other alternatives for a higher level of quality.

Narayan Vyas

Narayan Vyas

Senior PM, Plivo

The Impact

Eighteen engineers, a year each on average

The engineers we placed covered the stacks PHLO needed: Node, Rails, PHP, Python, iOS and Android. Plivo never had to pause the roadmap while it recruited for one of them.

Eighteen engineers went onto the project and contracts averaged a year, so the people who learned the codebase were still on it months later.