Who We Are
Our Values
At Smart Data, our core competency is to demonstrate our values through our work. We value Honesty, Transparency, Integrity, and Respect.
Collaboration is more than a buzzword at Smart Data — it is an expectation. We collaborate with our customers, within our Development Team plus across teams and with leadership. Teams have easy access to anyone in the organization who can add benefit to their project.
We also Value:
- Collaboration with customers and colleagues
- Being responsive to our customers’ needs
- Maintaining a long term partnership vision
- Taking pride in the quality of our work
Honesty
We seek to hire people who have the courage to be honest in all situations.
Transparency
We listen to our customers to learn how they work and let them see how we work.
Integrity
We expect our employees to always do the right thing for our customer.
Respect
Respecting that there are topics on which someone else knows more.
“Smart Data is an open and collaborative environment that makes me happy to come to work every day”
Our Structure and Environment
Smart Data is a Scrum company so we operate with a unique, flat hierarchical structure negating the need for a large Senior Leadership team. Our Development Teams average ten years of experience and are empowered to leverage the technology and processes that best suit our customer’s project.
Our adherence to Scrum practices provides structure and sets each team member’s accountability to themselves and to the team. That accountability drives our team productivity which, in turn, leads to successful projects.
Our Development Teams are self-organized so each operates a bit differently but our focus is always on the customer and their needs. We have engineered our dev spaces to be open environments with desks on wheels. Being able to easily reconfigure our pods supports interaction between team members, leadership, and our customers.
We decorate our office walls with artifacts of our work. Velocity charts for specific projects, Persona Mapping targets, company and team resource planning boards, Kanban boards, and offsite resource grids are typical visuals found within our spaces.
Our People
Smart Data hires smart people with good kindergarten skills who share our values. Our employees bring a wide variety of experiences, skills and knowledge to the organization so we offer our customers expertise that is deep and diverse.
Everyone is humble enough to realize that others in the company know more than they do on some topics. That humility keeps egos in-check allowing the atmosphere in our offices to be one of mutual respect and easy collaboration.
Collaboration is at the heart of Smart Data and it prevents the creation of silos or towers of knowledge. Our team is made up of individuals who like sharing, learning, leading and following, and we all do some of each. We trust and depend on one another, which has made us into a close family of software developers, technical experts, and business professionals.
Smart Data employees are encouraged and expected to use their knowledge, skills, and experience to help solve the problems confronting our customers and ourselves. Ideas are to be voiced, concerns are to be raised. Lessons-learned and best practices are to be shared across the organization.
“[Smart Data is] the best place I’ve worked. It’s energizing; not a place I dread coming into. I like the people I work with. [It’s a] great environment — the people make it great. [It’s an] environment of learning — you never stop learning.”
Our Focus on Learning
We hire passionate individuals who thrive on learning so our developers are always checking out the newest technologies. To further foster an atmosphere of learning, Smart Data hosts monthly Lunch+Learn events where new technologies are showcased and discussed plus other relevant topics are presented.
Smart Data employees are often presenters at the Lunch+Learns along with various conferences such as ComSpark, Taste of IT, StirTrek and AgileCincy. Employees are encouraged to attend technology-related meet-ups and user groups.
Smart Data provides “investment time” to further our staff’s knowledge and skill development including offsite training sessions with industry experts and online training tools. On the rare instances the pace of work has allowed, Smart Data launched Internal bench projects so developers could learn specific technologies such as Kubernetes, Spring Boot on Google Cloud and Cassandra.
“Smart Data employees are learners. That’s our core competency; we have the ability to learn and figure out solutions to any problems [our customers] might have.”
“We have an aggressively casual environment– it’s fantastic. Code will compile even if you’re not wearing a button-down shirt.”
Our Fun
Fun is also an important part of the Smart Data culture. We like each other and enjoy the hours we spend together each week so it’s natural that friendships grow, good-natured joking and teasing happens. Smiling abounds, laughter is frequently heard, and food is often part of the mix.
Ping-pong and dart challenges are often extended and the practice of golf putts is a frequent activity. Scattered throughout the year, we enjoy lunchtime potlucks and cook-outs, game nights, happy hour gatherings, team-building outings, family activities, and our especially fun Smart Data Christmas celebration and gift exchange.
Our Fun
Fun is also an important part of the Smart Data culture. We like each other and enjoy the hours we spend together each week so it’s natural that friendships grow, good-natured joking and teasing happens. Smiling abounds, laughter is frequently heard, and food is often part of the mix.
Ping-pong and dart challenges are often extended and the practice of golf putts is a frequent activity. Scattered throughout the year, we enjoy lunchtime potlucks and cook-outs, game nights, happy hour gatherings, team-building outings, family activities, and our especially fun Smart Data Christmas celebration and gift exchange.
“We have an aggressively casual environment– it’s fantastic. Code will compile even if you’re not wearing a button-down shirt.”
Our History
Smart Data has been in business since 2006. Ravi Manchala, our founder and CEO, is a software developer who loves investing in the careers of other technology professionals. Ravi had a few simple goals when he set out to start a small business:
- Make great software
- Engage customers with integrity
- Create opportunities for other people
Smart Data is extremely selective about the character of the people we hire. We continually develop our resources to include the latest and best tools and skills in the market.
Our customers include large enterprises, state government agencies as well as smaller businesses and they represent a variety of verticals including healthcare, retail e-commerce, manufacturing, fashion, and municipal government.
On a daily basis, Smart Data upholds Ravi’s goals. We listen to our customers, communicate with transparency and make decisions based on our customers’ needs. As a result, we ensure projects run smoothly and high-quality software is delivered to fulfill their needs. The Smart Data organization continues to grow — offering opportunities for challenging work and professional development to smart, nice people.
Get in Touch
Looking to develop a new website or improve an existing one? With years of experience and expertise in all things web development, we are perfectly equipped to take your business to the next level with our high-quality services.