Engaging in Talking Tech Conversations with Prestatech

A few months back, at the Web Summit, we met Granit Gashi, CTO at Prestatech, and we immediately bonded over using Vue as our choice of front-end stack. Since then, we reconnected to discuss what Prestatech does, why they chose Vue and their plans. So enjoy this talking tech session with our tech lead, Nika Jorjoliani, and learn more about Prestatech's platform.

More About Prestatech

Prestatech helps European banks and financial institutions simplify digital credit solutions through an innovative underwriting platform that has already won over major banks across the continent. Prestatech's services cover everything from data enrichment to end-to-end instant lending solutions. They're always working to stay ahead of the curve with the latest in AI, advanced algorithms, and Big Data technologies. Their open platform means their solutions are easy to access and integrate into existing systems using APIs.

Choosing a Tech Stack

Granit Gashi: Lately, we have expanded our application to more clients. Since we were in the business-to-business (B2B) work, the user interface was not initially intended for end users. Now, we have shifted our focus to creating a more consumer-oriented product. To do this, we needed to find a technology that was easy for us to adopt. We settled on Vue.js, which is the best fit for our needs. 

We already had some APIs and backends developed in 2020 and 2021. So we chose the stack to which we could get quickly onboarded and something that doesn't have a steep learning curve.

Nika Jorjoliani: That's a great point about Vue that I think differentiates it from other popular choices like React or Angular.

Granit Gashi: To my limited experience, I would need to learn quite a few things to use React effectively before starting to develop. There are also many ways of doing things in React, and developers with more backend backgrounds might find it slightly difficult to choose the right one. So, it may be a good option for some cases, but it's definitely not a good choice for us. We needed something that would allow us to follow some path.

Nika Jorjoliani: Vue.js is way more intuitive for me as well. You just always know what you're getting. What I especially like is that UI and logic are separate.

Switching From Vue 2 To Vue 3

Nika: We all know that the changes from Vue 2 to Vue 3 have caused a stir within the community. How have they affected you? And why do you think so many developers find it hard to transition and adjust to Vue 3?

Granit: We are actually currently assessing if it would be beneficial for us to make the switch to Vue 3. The composition API will make this transition a challenge. Overall, the cost of development and roadmap are the main factors preventing us from switching.

Nika: The biggest problem I've seen people have with Vue 3 is the composition API. That's a new way of doing Vue.js; it takes time to get used to. Besides that, Vue 3 is pretty nice, and the speed boost is substantial. 

Granit: Did you have any case when the company you work with upgraded to Vue 3 smoothly?

Nika: Few clients are willing to upgrade to Vue 3. It's mainly because it might require some additional work, depending on the size and architecture of their project. But sometimes, upgrading makes sense if you expect the project to run long-term and continue its development. 

Developer Experience on Vue

Nika: Developer experience was a massive topic at Web Summit. How has your experience been with Vue?

Granit: Actually, I find Vue.js very straightforward, easy to set up and deploy, and easy to learn, which is the most critical part for me as a developer. Even though I had never worked with Vue, I could already add the features to the product in just two days. And this is precisely what I like the most about Vue - that it's easy and not a headache to maintain.

Nika: Same goes for me. Whatever you are searching for, you can quickly find everything. Plus, Vue has plenty of opportunities for advanced development. Even basic tasks are easy, like using the Options API and communicating between components. Vue's event-driven system makes props and events simple to understand and use.

Recruiting Software Developers

Nika: You mentioned you're going to increase your dev team. How is your recruitment process? 

Granit: First, we don't work with a recruiting company. We have in-house recruitment and take care of the hiring process ourselves. It can be challenging to find developers that fit the company's culture and have the necessary technical skills; this is something you should be aware of from the start. Plus, many of them do not want to spend five hours on a test. Time is always of the essence, and finding the ideal candidate in a limited time can be daunting.

Nika: It's interesting that you mention the importance of time. That's always one of the reasons our clients are interested in partnering with us because they are so pressed for time in sourcing and qualifying candidates that they'd rather have access to a pool of talent that has already undergone the selection process. 

So, what are your policies when recruiting? For example, do you recruit junior developers that grow with you or people with sizeable knowledge in the field?

Granit: People we seek don't need to be experts in that area. If somebody has some experience in React, knows its challenges, and can create an application, they are a good fit for the company. It's better for us to have somebody who matches our vision and mentality and can align with the company's product and people.

Nika: That's a good approach. If somebody is strong in React.js, they can also learn Vue and vice versa. The ability to learn specific technologies fast is more important for us than their experience the past two years.

For us, the recruitment process starts with the HR sourcing and interview phase when they meet the candidate, learn more about their background, check if they would fit us culturally, and if they are proficient in English since we operate primarily with international clients. Then the candidates are given a technical assignment, which we assess. At the second meeting, the interviewer asks technical questions and does a hands-on pair-programming session with the candidate. 

Then we have a second technical interview where we ask higher-level architectural questions and check their understanding of the fundamentals and processes and what they've learned over the years.

Since we primarily work on staff augmentation and dedicated agile team models, we always hire people in advance. We have a bench with at least six to seven developers to staff new projects as quickly as possible. So the recruitment process for us is always underway. 

Onboarding New Developers

Nika: Some developers on your project probably come and go, writing code for a short time. How do you ensure that the process stays aligned with the project goals?

Granit: When I joined the company, a dedicated developer was responsible for the front end. So we went through the project and demonstrated how to do things to get up to speed. We explained that we separate the code logic from the design elements and store our helper functions, which we call APIs, in a separate file. So whenever someone new joins the team, we do the same thing. We onboard them on the process and keep the project consistent.

Future Plans

Nika: What are your plans regarding the product and its features? Are you planning any changes in technology?

Granit: We plan to create a platform tailored for different sectors while using the same core technology and make features or APIs reusable. We now have to decide whether to use the same portal or add separate web applications since the product will have its own roadmap and mission. It is going to be faster-paced than the one that is built for financial institutions. And what's important, we plan to give them a similar experience, but maybe a different look and feel. And now, we are discussing how we want to structure the front end. 

Another challenge from the business side is moving to other countries. For example, if we want to go to Spain, we want to make an algorithm that works for Spanish banks.

One thing that we find now as a big challenge is also the cost of infrastructure. Azure costs around half a million annually, which is a lot for a small company. We have a lot of services and a lot of calculations going on there. 

The thing that we're exploring now is AWS. But first, we must determine which features to add and what to change inside the technology.

Another big challenge is that we need to make our services easier to onboard and scale across teams as we plan to grow our team size and number of developers next year. To do this, we need to have a pluggable core architecture in a single product.

So, these are some future things that we will need to worry about.