Stop Guessing—How to Recognize a Reliable Software Development Partner

Reliable Software Development Partner: Their measurable reliability is built on these five non-negotiables.

• SLA with teeth: Response/Resolution targets by severity, credits for misses, and clarity on change windows.

• Transparent sprint demos: Every 1–2 weeks, clickable software—not slideware. Recordings shared.

• Quality gates in CI/CD: Lint, tests, coverage thresholds (e.g., critical code ≥80%), and mandatory code review.

• Security-by-default: OWASP Top 10 awareness, least-privilege IAM, secrets in vaults, no hard-coded keys.

• Traceability: User stories ↔ commits ↔ builds ↔ deployments. Tickets are not optional.

What to ask (and verify)

• “Show last sprint’s demo recording and release notes.”
• “Export your pipeline run history for the last two releases.”
• “Share your standard DoD. Where do security checks and performance budgets live?”
• “Walk me through a P1 incident you resolved—timestamps, MTTR, postmortem link.”
  Common pitfalls
• Promised seniority without org chart access. Ask for named roles and % allocation.
• ‘Fixed price’ with vague specs. Demand a change control and assumptions log.
• Security as a phase. It must be continuous, not a late audit.

Next step → Use the checklist at the end of this page to score any vendor in 15 minutes.

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Our Delivery System at Yuanzitech (agile software development process)

Cadence & roles

• Sprint length: 2 weeks.
• Ceremonies: Planning (timeboxed), daily standup (15 min), Demo, Retro.
• Roles you get: Product Lead (your proxy), Tech Lead, Engineers, QA, DevOps. Single Slack channel & shared dashboard.

Definition of Done (DoD)

• Story accepted by Product Lead, code merged with review, tests green, security checks passed, feature flagged if risky, docs updated.

Quality gates

• Static checks: Linting/blocking rules.
• Tests: Unit as default; integration + e2e for critical flows. Coverage targets: critical paths ≥80%, platform avg ≥65% (experience target).
• CI/CD: Build once, promote across envs; approvals enforced; rollback plan for each release.

Security (security-first standard operating mode)

• OWASP awareness, SAST/DAST in pipeline; secrets in a managed vault; least-privilege IAM; dependency scanning weekly; P1 patch SLA.

Artifacts we deliver every sprint

• Demo recording & changelog; burndown snapshot; coverage & quality report; open risks & decisions log.

Next step → See how this looks in practice—book a scope call at https://yuanzitech.com/ and ask for a sample sprint pack.

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Pricing Logic You Can Audit（software development pricing）

Feature Point model (simple and fair)

• For each feature, assign Complexity Points (CP):
  • Base complexity (1–5) × effort factor (front-end/back-end)
    • Integration points (per external system)
    • Compliance points (PII, audit, payment, etc.)
• Budget formula:
  • Budget ≈ CP_total × $900–$1,400 USD/point (experience range; adjust by stack & team seniority)
• Timeline formula:
  • Sprints ≈ CP_total ÷ Team Velocity (points/sprint).
  • Example: 120 CP, velocity 30 → ~4 sprints (8 weeks) to MVP.

Change control that protects you

• Assumptions log maintained per feature. Any change → new CP delta approved before work. No surprises.

Common pitfalls

• Under-specifying integrations (auth, retries, error tax).
• Ignoring non-functional budgets (performance, observability, security).

Next step → List your top 5 features, rough CP each, and multiply. Bring the list to us for a validated estimate.

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SLAs, KPIs, and What Happens When Things Go Wrong（software development SLA）

Service Levels (sample)

• Response/Resolution: P1—15m/4h, P2—1h/8h, P3—4h/3d.
• Change windows: Agreed deployment windows; emergency hotfix carves out.
• Bug warranty: 30 days after acceptance for scope defects.

Delivery KPIs

• Velocity stability: ±15% over 3 sprints.
• Escaped defects: ≤ 2 per sprint for MVP stage (experience target).
• Lead time for changes: commit → prod median ≤ 24h after MVP hardening.

When things go wrong

• Time-stamped incident channel; owner assigned within SLA; postmortem in 48h with action items; client sign-off on closure.

Next step → Ask us for the SLA appendix and KPI dashboard sample—request via https://yuanzitech.com/.

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Case Snapshots (Anonymized) & Anti-Patterns We Refuse

Scenario A: Team Augmentation for a Fintech MVP (anonymized)

• Outcome: delivered KYC flow + ledger module in 10 weeks; reduced escaped defects by 40% after adding e2e tests. (Experience-based example)

Scenario B: Greenfield SaaS (B2B)

• Outcome: hit first enterprise pilot in 12 weeks with role-based access and audit logs. (Experience-based example)

Scenario C: Legacy Rescue

• Outcome: stabilized error rate (−70%) in 3 sprints by fixing logging, adding circuit breakers. (Experience-based example)

Anti-patterns we say no to

• No product owner on client side; “fixed-everything” with undefined scope; shipping without tests; credentials sent over email; skipping demos.

Next step → If your current vendor matches ≥2 anti-patterns, talk to us about a transition plan.

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Start Here—Your 10-Point Vendor Reliability Checklist

Score 0–2 each (0 = missing, 2 = strong). 16+ means “safe to proceed”.

1. SLA with credits & clear severities
2. Sprint demo recordings + release notes
3. DoD includes security & performance budgets
4. CI/CD with blocking checks & approvals
5. Test coverage targets documented
6. Secrets management & dependency scanning
7. Incident MTTR & postmortems shared
8. Named team, roles, allocation %
9. Change control & assumptions log
10. Traceability from story → commit → deploy

Next step → Fill this and share it with us at https://yuanzitech.com/ to get a free risk report.