We build bespoke teams
of dedicated developers

By and large, specialized companies deliver much more value to their clients and partners. From the very beginning, Black Label has specialized in JavaScript development and its various frameworks: React, Node.js and Vue.js. We’ve also been Highcharts specialists from early on, which is one of the most popular JavaScript and TypeScript charting tools and data visualization libraries in the world.

Here’s a full list of the technologies and frameworks we currently use at Black Label: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Node.js, Vue.js, HTML5, CSS3, Karma, Cypress, Express, Nest, Bull, Redis, PostgreSQL, Redux, Redux-Saga, Auth0, GraphQL, Material UI, Leaflet, PNPM, Webpack.

We charge an hourly rate for the work done by a Developer or Tester. We usually don’t charge for non-technical roles such as Project Managers or Scrum Masters, even though they are often highly involved in projects on many levels.

The monthly budget for every project is discussed and agreed upon with our partner before we begin working so there are no surprises. We issue a monthly VAT invoice with detailed hourly timesheets attached giving our partner full transparency.

We prefer to use Scrum methodology for all of our projects. If you’re not familiar with this particular agile methodology, or you’re currently working in a ‘scrum-like setup’ but would like to boost your efficiency and transparency, we’re more than happy to help you implement best practices and even run a workshop for you – free of charge.

With this said, we’re not Scrum purists by any means.  We believe that whatever works for a given project is what should be used – better can be the enemy of good.  We often analyze our partners’ processes and propose changes to improve performance – also free of charge.

Additionally, we’ve learned that using Kanban methodology can be a more efficient way of running a project with a smaller team, so this is what we tend to stick to. 

We try to seamlessly integrate with our partners so we always use the communication and project management tools of their choice. We most often use a mix of the following: Slack, Teams, Github, Asana, Trello, Miro, Figma, StoriesOnBoard, Intercom, Sentry, Zeplin, the Google and Adobe Suites and of course good ole Jira to keep our projects running smoothly.

We usually start with one or two developers at a discounted rate as a proof of concept for a given project, and then we can scale the project from there. We can easily scale up or down our involvement as we know how mission-critical resource flexibility can be for our partners. 

We’ve observed over time that the optimal team size seems to be five Developers and a Scrum Master. For larger projects we suggest that several teams collaborate together in a team-of-teams schematic.

Our company culture is built around trust so we don’t look over each other’s shoulders per se. We of course also understand the importance of transparency to our partners so every Developer reports and often comments on a daily basis about the hours they log for a specific task or project.

Also, it’s easy to control the hours logged on a project using Scrum as it offers almost complete transparency, which is why we propose using Scrum methodology to most of our partners.

Once again, flexibility is the key when it comes to how many hours each Developer works on a given project.

The average month has 168 possible working hours, however, in practice, our Developers are able to work for our partners for around 140 hours as they also spend  time gaining new skills, deepening their domain knowledge and helping other colleagues improve their skills and code.

Now, this doesn’t mean that every Developer has to spend the full 140 hours a month of their capacity working on one specific project. It’s pretty common that the development team consists of developers working less than the maximum of their capacity, giving you quite a bit of flexibility to increase firepower or scale back resources as the need arises. In other words, you can tell us how many hours you are able to invest in your project in a given month and we will adjust accordingly.

It goes without saying that we charge only for the hours spent on actual work in each project.

In short, our teams are incredibly stable and we work hard to maintain that stability. The longer a Developer works with their team and with a project, the more efficient the Developer and the team become. Of course if and when the need arises we can shift developers between projects, especially when we see an opportunity to increase efficiency or to help a partner scale up.

We have been fortunate at Black Label to have had minimal Developer turnover over the last decade and a half with close to a 95% retention rate. This has contributed greatly to the stability of our teams over time and eliminated unnecessary resource expenditures for knowledge transfer about projects for both us and our partners.

Relationships are crucial so we establish your point of contact right at the beginning of our partner onboarding process –  you will most likely meet this person on your first call with Black Label and this will most likely be the team supervisor of the project.

Additionally, we encourage all of our partners to keep a direct line of communication open with Greg Iwacz (CEO) and Grzesiek Blachliński (COO) – who are always available to answer any questions and help improve the project workflow.

The most efficient teams are self-organized teams – this means there is no chain of command nor just one specific problem-solver. Each team tackles every issue they face internally, however there is always a Scrum Master or other supervisor that facilitates all the processes and monitors the team’s communication and overall project efficiency.