Why Hire ShakaCode?

At ShakaCode, we build custom web and mobile apps, specializing in the use of React or React-Native on the front end and Ruby on Rails on the back end. We both build new apps, and we help our clients migrate from aging jQuery and Angular UI’s to fresh React-based UI’s.

While our typical clients are VC-backed startups, like Everwise, we also do work for independent, smaller companies, like egghead.io, as well as established, larger companies, like Autodesk and Apartment Showcase (part of the Washington Post). Our clients hire a software development agency because they do not want to hire full-time staff or because they want expertise to accelerate their staff.

Accelerate Your Team

We can work side by side your current engineers, helping them get up to speed on the latest technologies and best practices. When we help you out, we bring the experiences of our entire team.

If you want more advice than code, check out React on Rails Pro.

If you want to speed up your team’s progress with code, our engineers are available to work on your product features and bugs.

Migrate your UX from Angular to React

An area we’ve been focusing on recently is the conversion of large Angular plus Rails projects over to using React on Rails. The big advantage of using React on Rails is that you can quickly migrate individual screens in your app over to using React. An incremental migration is safer and more productive.

New Web and Mobile Applications

Do you have a project in mind? Do you have a need to collect, manipulate, or display some form of data, including text, numbers, images, tables, charts, maps, etc.?

If you don’t yet have a detailed visual design, we will first help you design the application’s functionality, including the visual look of the screens and the underlying functionality. We combine your needs with our experience to develop a functional product that fits within your budget. For example, with our deep experience of both web and mobile apps, we can help you pick whether or not you need “native” iOS and Android mobile apps, or if a well designed mobile-responsive web app can meet your needs.

From your design, we’ll create a project plan of incremental internal releases to get feedback and demonstrate progress. Typically, we’ll use a Trello board to move cards from “Planned” to “In-Progress” to “In-Review” to “Completed” lists. We typically resort the cards every couple of weeks.

We minimize the code we write for your project to maximize your value. We’re strong believers that less code is better for our clients. We avoid writing code for your project by leveraging:

1. Open source projects.
2. Code from our internal projects, including friendsandguests.com.
3. Utilizing paid, cloud services where sensible (hosting, continuous integration, customer support, etc.).

On the topic of open source, we don’t just use other’s open source code. We’ve got a track record of open source leadership, especially with regards to the integration of Ruby on Rails with React: React On Rails.

We take great pride in the code that we deliver, not just in the visible application. While it’s possible to take short-cuts on very small projects, the problem is that each new feature and bugfix can become more and more difficult and, thus, expensive. We only deliver quality code that can be easily maintained and enhanced in the future.

Projects representative of our skills include:

• Friends and Guests: This is ShakaCode’s own application, representing the best of what we can deliver. It heavily leverages a dynamic client side.

• Blink Inc: ShakaCode has proudly delivered all the code for this web application and photo processing system since day one, working side by side with the co-founder and CTO, Igor Krtollica, since 2011. We continue to support this application.

• Spylight: ShakaCode built this native mobile app using React-Native, in a span of months. It offers the capabilities of the website plus more.

Read more about the ShakaCode portfolio samples here.

Why ShakaCode?

1. We’re experts in our chosen technologies. We focus on the tools with the maximum productivity. On the client side, we typically use React or React-Native, with its associated ecosystem including redux, redux-saga, reselect, webpack, etc. On the server side, we typically use Ruby on Rails. On our React-Native projects, we’re experienced at creating native extensions when required. Our open source project, React on Rails, with over 3,200 stars, is leading solution integration of Rails with React.
2. We have experience in both new applications, such as Friends and Guests, as well as migrating large existing applications to React from Angular, such as egghead.io.
3. We have a long-term history of espousing industry best practices. A while back, Justin Gordon spoke at numerous top industry conferences on the importance of Test Driven Development in enterprise software projects. Justin has spoken on code organization with Rails projects at Rails Conf 2014. You can find many writing samples at railsonmaui.com and our community forum.
4. I, Justin Gordon, personally stand behind all of our team member’s work. Plus, all of our team members know to help each other out so that nobody gets stuck for very long. We truly believe that our team’s collaboration skills make us much greater than the sum of the parts.