Connected Car Apps for a Global Provider of Automotive IoT Solutions
Customer
The Customer is a global provider of automotive IoT solutions that include both hardware and software parts (APIs, server software, SaaS administration panel, etc.). They partner up with the businesses in vehicle manufacturing, car insurance, and fleet management from over 50 countries.
Challenge
The Customer’s telematics solution includes mobile connected car apps that dynamically collect data about vehicles, trips, driver behavior, and upload this data to the server. The apps are being sold to clients and need to be further customized to the clients’ needs.
However, as the Customer’s in-house team was almost fully involved in the development and evolution of the core software products, they needed experienced mobile developers to assist them with customization and evolution of clients’ applications. The Customer didn’t have time for in-house recruitment and preferred to have more flexibility in resource allocation during what was shaping up to be long-term cooperation.
Solution
The Customer reached out to ScienceSoft with the request for mobile team augmentation services.
One of the key initial requirements was the possibility to scale the team up anytime, so that even the most demanding and challenging customization would be done for the client in time. Thanks to the vast pool of vetted iOS and Android development talents, ScienceSoft was able to meet this demand.
Among key requirements to the developers were:
- Hands-on experience with IoT software development.
- Expertise in Bluetooth APIs and Geolocation APIs for iOS and Android.
- Practical knowledge of the latest native app development languages (Swift and Kotlin).
ScienceSoft provided the CVs of the fitting candidates to the Customer and, upon receiving the feedback, arranged the interviews with the shortlisted talents. In under 2 weeks, the Customer successfully hired 3 Android and 3 iOS development experts from ScienceSoft. The developers joined the mobile team managed by the Team Lead on the Customer’s side.
Despite the cooperation schedule being highly dynamic, with dates and priorities regularly changing due to the clients’ varied demands, ScienceSoft’s mobile app developers adapted to the Scrum-based workflows within less than 5 working days. They also easily got used to the high-transparency communication scheme: meetings with the Customer’s in-house developers once a day and at least one weekly meeting with key stakeholders (Team Lead, Project Manager, CTO, and representatives from the clients’ sides).
Results
As part of the Customer’s team, ScienceSoft’s developers have so far helped to customize, tune, and evolve dozens of telematics app versions for multiple clients. To implement more challenging customizations quickly, the Customer asks to temporarily scale iOS and Android teams up with 2-4 developers, and ScienceSoft makes sure to fulfill the requests within 3-5 working days. The fruitful cooperation has lasted for over 5 years so far and is still ongoing.
Technologies and Tools
Java, Kotlin, Android Studio, Android SDK, Swift, Objective-C, X Code, iOS SDK, GSON, Bluetooth API, ORMLite, Multimedia and Camera API, ML Kit, Core ML, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Geocoding API, MapKit, Location-Based Services Android, iOS Location Services, Retrofit, Push notifications (FCM), Gradle, Git.
