Today we were filling 58 questions form from for a potential client. There were some great questions. So I decided to share a part of that info.
Table of Contents
Team & Experience
How long has ProductCrafters been operating?
Our development team has been operating for over 9 years. Core team members have been with us for 6+ years, and most of the team has been here for 3+ years. This stability means institutional knowledge stays in-house—we’re not constantly retraining or losing context on client projects.
What’s your staff turnover rate?
Our team consists of 25 people. Over the last 2 years, only 3 team members left the company—that’s a 12% turnover rate. In an industry where annual turnover often exceeds 30%, we’re proud of this number.
How do you retain your development team?
We invest heavily in training. We often train senior-year university students through internships on internal projects, then hire the top 10%. They start their careers with us and grow into our culture and values.
Beyond that, we retain our team through long-term projects, competitive compensation, clear career growth paths, and a strong engineering culture focused on ownership and quality. We also spend time together offline and play games on weekends—it builds real relationships.
What’s your hiring policy—do you hire junior developers?
We hire middle and senior developers only for client projects. Juniors are trained internally on our own projects before they touch client work.
Where is your team located? Do they speak English?
All our developers, designers, QA engineers, and project managers are based in Ukraine. Everyone speaks fluent English, and all code is written in English—variable names, comments, documentation, everything.
Does your team work remotely or from an office?
We use a hybrid model. Team members can work from home or our office depending on their preference and project needs.
Engagement Models & Pricing
What engagement models do you offer?
We offer three models to fit different needs:
- Dedicated Team (monthly retainer) — a stable team that becomes an extension of your organization
- Dedicated Team (hourly) — same dedicated resources, billed by actual hours worked
- Fixed-price projects — if the project goes over budget, we absorb the cost and complete the work as scoped
Are project managers and QA included in your estimates, or billed separately?
When we prepare an estimate, the cost of project management and quality assurance is already included in the total price. There are no additional or hidden costs for these roles.
How many developers do you allocate per Project Manager?
Depending on project complexity, we allocate 2-5 developers per Project Manager. This ensures each PM can give proper attention to the work without being spread too thin.
Delivery & Reliability
What percentage of your projects are delivered on time?
96% of our contracts are delivered within the original estimate. We intentionally include buffer time for critical or high-risk areas during planning. The only cases where timelines are extended are when clients request additional functionality—and those changes are discussed and explicitly agreed upon in advance.
What guarantees do you offer that projects will be completed?
We work with clearly defined scope, milestones, and deliverables. PM oversight, built-in buffers, QA processes, and regular client reporting ensure projects are delivered as agreed. Any scope changes are aligned and approved in advance.
We tackle the most complex or unknown parts of projects first—this way, if something takes longer than expected, we discover it early when there’s time to adapt. Our leadership team is also involved in every project at no additional charge to clients.
What happens if a developer leaves mid-project?
We ensure continuity through shared code ownership, documentation, code reviews, and internal knowledge transfer. Another experienced developer can step in without impacting delivery. Additionally, our team members have a contractual notice period of at least one month, allowing us to ensure smooth transitions.
What if a Project Manager or Business Analyst leaves?
All project processes, timelines, and decisions are documented. Another PM or BA can quickly take over using existing plans, backlogs, and reporting. Requirements, specs, and decisions are fully documented, and replacement team members can continue work based on approved documentation and ongoing client communication.
Communication & Responsiveness
What are your team’s working hours and timezone?
Our team works from Ukraine, 10:00-18:00 local time (EET/EEST). We follow the Ukrainian holiday schedule.
How quickly can we expect responses from your team?
For DevOps emergencies, our usual response time is within 1 hour. For Project Manager or Scrum Master responses, expect a reply within 2 hours during working hours.
Project Management & Planning
Who handles initial project scoping and estimation?
Initial project planning and scoping is handled directly by me as CTO. I define the overall architecture, scope, and technical approach based on business goals and requirements. After that, the plan is reviewed and validated by the developers who will actually work on the project—this ensures feasibility, accuracy, and realistic estimates.
What tools does your team use for project management?
We use industry-standard tools that your internal team can easily inherit:
- Jira or Asana for task and sprint management
- Notion or Confluence for documentation
- GitHub or GitLab for version control and code reviews
- GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for CI/CD
- Terraform and cloud provider dashboards for infrastructure
- Figma for design collaboration
- Slack and Zoom for daily communication
Development Approach
Can your team work with legacy code and existing systems?
Absolutely. Our team is comfortable working with legacy code and unfamiliar codebases. Developers are used to quickly investigating existing systems, understanding context, and making changes safely through code reviews, tests, and documentation—without requiring formal handovers.
What’s your onboarding process for fixed-price legacy projects?
We start with a short discovery phase before signing any contract: codebase review, architecture analysis, and documentation check. This eliminates guesswork and identifies hidden risks. Based on this, we finalize scope, risks, milestones, and the fixed-price estimate.
Once engaged, Week 1 focuses on securing full access, setting up local environments, and conducting recorded knowledge transfer sessions with the previous team. Weeks 1-2 are a stabilization sprint: fixing critical bugs, setting up CI/CD, and creating documentation so the team can deploy confidently before any new feature work begins.
Only after stabilization do we move into fixed-scope execution with weekly demos and a formal change request process. This phased approach protects both sides—clients get realistic estimates, and we avoid surprises mid-project.
Do you have AI and machine learning expertise?
Yes. We have 4 AI engineers in-house with ML training who have built multiple multi-agentic and prompt engineering projects that went to production. We also have 5 FlutterFlow developers with experience on at least 5 full-time projects each.
What no-code platforms do you work with?
Our team works with Bubble and Webflow for no-code development needs.
Quality Assurance
How do you ensure quality control on projects?
Quality is built into our process at every stage:
- CI/CD Pipelines: Automated testing and deployment catches issues early
- Test Automation: Unit, integration, and UI tests speed up testing and free QA for complex scenarios
- Manual Testing: Essential for exploratory, usability, and complex scenario testing
- Performance & Security Testing: Regular assessments ensure applications are robust and secure
- User Acceptance Testing: Real user feedback before launch ensures a seamless experience
How often do you conduct code reviews?
Code reviews are conducted continuously throughout development—typically daily—as part of our normal workflow. Every change is reviewed before being merged. Reviews are led by Senior Developers.
Do you use automated code review tools?
We use both manual and automated tools: linters, formatters, static analysis, and CI checks. Recently we’ve added Gemini-based AI code review for projects where clients are open to using AI tools.
Security & IP Protection
How do you ensure code security and data privacy?
We follow strict internal security policies:
- NDA agreements with all team members
- Role-based access with least-privilege permissions
- Secure repositories and encrypted environments
- Controlled access to client data—no sharing outside the project team
- Processes to remove access and delete data after project delivery
Is your team trained in ISO27001, HIPAA, or SOC2 compliance?
Our team follows best practices aligned with ISO27001 and SOC2 principles. For HIPAA-related projects, we work according to client-specific compliance requirements and security guidelines.
Do you have dedicated security personnel?
We don’t have a full-time security specialist on staff. For projects requiring security reviews, we engage external consultants on a project basis. Our developers follow secure coding practices (OWASP guidelines, dependency scanning, secrets management), and we can bring in certified penetration testers or security auditors when the project scope requires it.
How do you protect client intellectual property?
We protect client IP through contractual and operational safeguards:
- Every engagement starts with an NDA
- Contracts include work-for-hire and IP assignment clauses—all code belongs to you from day one
- Your code lives in a repository you own and control
- Credentials are stored in shared vaults where you have admin access
- Team members only get minimum access necessary for their role
- Access is revoked within 24 hours when someone leaves a project
- At project completion, you retain 100% ownership of all code, documentation, and assets
Do clients own 100% of the code you develop?
Yes. We confirm that 100% of the technology and IP developed is fully owned by the client upon payment, as stated in our contracts.
Ready to Talk?
If you’re looking for a development partner with stable team members, transparent processes, and a strong delivery track record—let’s have a conversation.
