Program-Ace

I am the CEO of Graceful

We create digital vaults for kids, powered by augmented reality.

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Great culture fit, Good value for cost, Company values aligned

2-5 Employees

Virtual Meeting

The primary scope of the project was the creation and animation of the avatar to our product.

Program Ace's project management is fantastic. They are very responsive and tended to deliver faster than expected. Through Slack, we created a constant feedback loop with them which meant that any concerns were immediately addressed.

The talent of the people that Program Ace brought to our project was incredible. The animator that brought our avatar to life is so talented. The Unity developer that implemented the avatar into AR for us was impressively fast and followed our creative direction to a tee.

No, we are very happy with the partnership and outcomes.

I’m the CTO and head of innovation at Spinview. We have a SaaS platform focused on volumetric data capture and display for industries. Our company has offices in several territories, including the US, the UK, Sweden, Serbia, and India.

We needed to create a high-performance volumetric data visualization engine.

Program-Ace is helping us build a volumetric visualization app from scratch using Unreal Engine. We use Git for code storage, C++ as the programing language, and Cesium’s plug-in for Unreal Engine, which is for geographical information system mapping. On the delivery side, we use Pixel Streaming architecture and binding between an existing web platform and this new specialized application.

We work with two senior engineers from Program-Ace, plus a project manager.

They reached out to us. I had had some previous interactions with Program-Ace outside my role, so I was aware of them. When their contact came in, the timing was good regarding the work we needed to do. I saw they were highly rated from reading reviews, so I contacted them and asked for some candidates to vet. The candidates they provided were top-notch and had the specific skills we needed — Unreal Engine developers, C++ expertise, and volumetric data knowledge.

We started working together in May 2022, and the engagement is ongoing.

We’re very happy with the results we’ve gotten from Program-Ace; they’ve provided us with a couple of rockstar engineers. For example, we had a design discussion, and I threw out some ideas of things it would be nice to do. They looked at the ideas, and although I assumed it would take 1–2 weeks, they had the feature running the next day.

We provide project management, and their resources are integrated into our development team, participating in our stand-up meetings and sprint planning. Since they work as part of our team, there aren’t overages in the way that there could be if we were hands-off or had closed-box development. Overall, the team has been very productive and responsive.

I’m impressed with Program-Ace’s knowledge of the Unreal Engine environment and what it’s capable of, which we’ve been able to leverage effectively the advanced functionality that we’re looking for. These skills are one of the reasons why we chose them for this project, and they’ve delivered on that.

Early in the process, I felt we needed a teammate with a better command of English in the mix because I can sometimes speak quickly, especially if I’m excited. I wanted the Program-Ace team to be comfortable and sensed that one of the engineers wasn’t participating as much. However, it turned out that it was part of getting to know each other. Therefore, I wouldn’t flag that as an issue. Overall, we’re satisfied with Program-Ace.

Get clarity about what kind of infrastructure Program-Ace will provide upfront. Infrastructure needs have come up for our specific team, such as a more perforce tool to manage their binaries and a password management account.

I am the Chief Product Officer at Passage, a platform for interconnected metaverse games and experiences.

We hired Program-Ace to help us execute a client project that involved game development, as well as integration with some of our own internal systems to provide a seamless experience for users in-game and on our platform.

We sought a number of bids from full-service teams that could take direction from our team and our client, but ultimately guide us in making smart decisions to reach the best end-product. This is where Program-Ace shined, as we realized early on that they fully understood the important points of the project and quickly identified opportunities to optimize our workflow and the end product to be cost/time efficient and a lot of fun!

We started with a pre-production phase with Program-Ace that output a GDD. From there we got a couple bids based on the GDD, but knew that Program-Ace had the best understanding of the work needed to accomplish the scope we had settled on. I wouldn't say they were the cheapest option in the bidding phase, but we were confident that the bid was appropriate for the scope and was not bloated with unnecessary team members. After that we started Production and received multiple updates daily from the art and development teams, early builds for feedback and clear communication around billing.

Program-Ace executed on-time and on-budget throughout the project. There were a few pivots we needed to make on the tech side, but we felt we were properly informed about any cost impact that those changes would have before decisions were made. The art for the project was really well beyond what we had expected for the project. We had given some aspirational references, but their team came back with something that really blew us away. Our client was thrilled also! When you go to a full-service team there is sometimes an expectations you'll need to make compromises on things like art quality and that was NOT the case here. We couldn't be happier with the visuals.

The team at Program-Ace speaks/writes very good English, which made working with them smooth and easy. They were very good about following up when they had unanswered questions or needed something from our side, but it always felt like progress was being made. The only thing that we could've done better was keeping to our weekly meeting schedule. The reality is that they often weren't needed because progress was so consistent, but that was one area where we often had meetings scheduled that were cancelled last second or not attended.

The way they executed our project was truly impressive and beyond our expectations. The proficiency in programming is exactly why we selected them, but their ability to execute a very unique, consistent art style will make us a repeat customer for years to come.

As mentioned, I think the only area for improvement would be around weekly meetings and getting clearer goals/standards around those meetings. Something worth noting is that this project took place in the midst of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine, which impacted some of our meetings. Overall we experienced almost no delays in our project despite team members being directly impacted by the conflict. They took their responsibility to us incredibly seriously, even in the midst of those awful events.

I’m the COO of a non-profit game application. We’ve developed a game platform for people to play on and for non-profits to receive donations. Players can donate money through the games to these organizations.

We needed software development services.

We had all the ideas and specifications at the start, and Program-Ace has helped us to program all the functions through frontend development, backend development, a bit of business analysis, DevOps, and project management. The deliverable is the code and the program.

It’s differed over time and according to need, but we normally have between 5–8 people including a frontend developer, a backend developer, a team lead, a designer, a DevOps resource, a business analyst, and a project manager.

The founder of our company received a recommendation from a friend. We exchanged thoughts and decided that Program-Ace would be the best solution because of their offerings, their professional ability, and their cost.

We’ve spent around $65,000.

We’ve been working together since May 2021.

We’re holding the first MVP with all the main functionalities and we’re about to go live. When feedback comes in from users and nonprofit organizations, we’ll pass that on to Program-Ace.

There were a few communication problems with the developers initially due to a language barrier but Program-Ace did everything in their power to resolve them. We’ve reached a good communication flow.

Program-Ace has been keen to help us and for the project to succeed, doing what they can to accommodate our customers.

If you’re working on an international project, be prepared to cross a bit of a language barrier.

Be clear with your direction and delivery dates. Ask for regular updates directly from the developers.

I’m the head of product development at Lampada Digital Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hull University. Much of our work involves digital projects for the commercialization of the intellectual property (IP) coming out of the university. We also undertake projects directly with customers.

Our company provides AR/VR and 360 videos, including their content, to our customers. However, when we get an influx of work while our team is busy on other projects, we engage Program-Ace to help us with those extra projects. We also give them full projects, so they don’t only work alongside us on existing tasks.

The Program-Ace handles anything from 3D assets to the rigging of scenes in animations. For instance, one of our projects involves recreating environments to help end users familiarize themselves with a specific environment. Due to the confidential nature of our projects, it’s quite tricky to discuss any specific details. In any case, their team develops the animations and assets we need using Unity, and many of their tasks include 3D modeling.

We work with a couple of project managers, while their development team consists of 5–6 people.

We found them on LinkedIn, and we talked to them about the work we did around the IP commercialization space. Our team also looked at their work; they had some interesting products in the mixed reality space. We then had a chat with them to understand their work.

We’ve spent around $60,000.

We started working with Program-Ace in November 2020, and the partnership is ongoing.

Since our projects involve 360 videos and the recreation of environments, our success metrics focus on the quality of realism within the digital environments that Program-Ace creates. So far, our customers are truly pleased with the quality of the team’s work. The Program-Ace team also delivers on time even when we have tight timeframes. Overall, we’ve had highly successful projects with them.

Program-Ace’s project management has been great. We use the agile methodology in our work, and that doesn’t lend itself well to the timelines and milestones we have. Fortunately, Program-Ace works well and keeps us up to date with their progress. As soon as they finish a particular section of a project, they send it for review. Simply put, we have a fast-paced feedback loop, and they finish the videos we need within our required timescales. Their process of delivering the project is also great.

Program-Ace is happy to take our project brief, but they also have enough creativity to come up with alternatives using different ideas. As a result, we have a collaborative partnership where our teams both come up with ideas. Then, we chat about those ideas to know what’s best for the project. Simply put, they use a collaborative approach and have highly creative people.

No, there aren’t any. We’ve had a challenging project before, but it was because of the customer and not Program-Ace. Simply put, that project was not achievable or realistic. We tried many ways to achieve it, but it simply wasn’t achievable partly because of the customer’s budget.