Your new post is loading...
Knowing what makes your company stand out and your clear value proposition is key to your company’s growth. Both in attracting the best talent and working with top tier clients it is paramount to know where you stand and where the magic happens.
We got curious. We sat down with one of our colleagues, Christian - Director of Development, to take a look behind the scenes and see how we at 4D Pipeline help our clients make 3D digital products and confidently execute on their software initiatives. With helping our customers including amazing brands like; Adidas, AUDI, Adobe, Target, IKEA, Honda, AMD, Intel, Dassault Systèmes, SolidWorks, TurboSquid, Epic Games, we are pioneers in navigating this 3D world.
In this interview we set out to see where we thrive, how we work, and how we do what we do. We hope it inspires you to look at your company and the opportunities you can capture by being unique in your space.
What makes 4D Pipeline unique or successful?
“Our enterprising spirit. We hire the best software engineers we can find globally and by giving them the freedom to work as they like to reach the outcome we want for our clients we see success all around. We can also leverage an entire workforce with a brain trust of knowledge that most companies don’t have access to. We were one of the first companies in the space that has been flexible and remote, resulting in a strong track record of success.”
What is our Secret Sauce?
“Huge experience and expertise in the team. We have extensive experience in everything 3D related. Everyone in our team is an expert at software development and 3D graphics. We've worked in all areas of computer graphics and related technologies. We have informed ideas about every problem that comes our way which allows us to build on the foundation to transfer the benefit of solving problems which is a huge advantage for our clients.”
How do we do what we do?
“Sometimes chaotically, but always as best we can (Christian laughs). In software development and project management you have these shelves of books that tell us how to do things, but the real world is not like that. To make a project a success you need to know when to use a textbook or adapt to more lenient workflows. If you stick too much to the textbook you spend too much time on things that don’t matter and then if you stray too much from textbook then you are heading for disaster. The reason that this is important is that no two projects or clients are the same. The people on both sides are going to make the project requirements unique and sometimes changes occur. Actually, changes always occur. What helps us succeed is that we are not dogmatic. We use different procedures for each project. We are essentially adaptive.”
Can you describe a unique project and how we delivered it to success?
“We worked with Adidas for their group that is responsible for providing tools to the footwear designer group. They were used to designing shoes in 2D. The problem was that if someone wanted to see the shoe from another angle it meant the designer had to start from scratch and paint a new picture. They wanted to leverage 3D tools, different angles, rendering in different quality settings, ideally covering the workflow from the first design ideas, through design reviews, and all the way to providing the data to the factory to produce the shoes and marketing to market the shoes. We set out to solve these problems. Starting in 2017 we set out by creating a small proof of concept – a web application that allowed designers to modify existing shoe designs, assign different materials, and change the look of the shoes. What was wonderful to see was how the design community at Adidas wanted more features and they were big fans of what we built. Then over the course of the next few years this evolved into something that is now used by designers across the company. We are now planning to create one application for footwear and apparel which will make this even more amazing. Adidas now relies on this software to succeed everyday in production.”
What is one thing that you would want our future clients to know about 4D Pipeline?
“When you hire us we ensure that your project will succeed and build you the best possible software we can. There isn’t anything in the world of 3D software that we wouldn’t be able to do. We are on the journey with you. Your success is our success. People like working with us not just because of our 3D expertise but because we make sure that we understand your customers and their needs intimately. We understand the use cases and the value proposition. This is critical, as to be successful requires great software development but also we need to ensure the right features and right functionality are selected for development."
What do we do better than anyone else?
“Reliably building products that people love and working together as a team. We are very good at managing a remote team and are just as efficient if not more than an in office team. With our wide experience we have accumulated in all things graphics related we have become the go-to shop for challenging 3D graphics development. Although we are a relatively small company we have been instrumental on many key 3D products. We've been behind the scenes on projects for AUDI, IKEA, Adidas, Epic Games, Target, Adobe, Honda, Dassault Systèmes, SolidWorks, AMD, Intel, TurboSquid, and many others.”
What is a day in the life of a software engineer at 4D Pipeline?
“As software engineers we look at Jira and our open tickets. Figuring out our highest priorities. We encourage an open culture with questions and draw on the expertise of our colleagues. We ask questions early and many of them, if you can’t Google it within 5 minutes allow people to help! We work together as a team. Typical day would include a call with the client, conversation with your project manager, engage with testers, always planning for tasks ahead, explain any impediments in your workflow, and report any estimates that may be off. For the more senior software engineers they often get called upon to estimate costs for projects, help with hiring, establish lead development roles where a senior helps a junior, and provide personal mentorship. Essentially they aim to make great things happen and deliver good software.”
What would you tell someone considering to work at 4D?
“I think it is an awesome place to work which combines the flexibility that remote work offers with a very experienced and skillful team. This environment also encourages each person to learn something new all the time. We get to work with big and well known clients, as well as small startups alike. From huge corporate projects such as the one outlined above, to very specific, hard to figure out problems - helping unlocking a small startup in their journey towards their next level. We have seen projects running for over a year and projects that last a few weeks or even days.”
What is our culture like?
“What I enjoy at 4D pipeline, it is fun to do this job. It is not the dry type of software development work that people associate with development. We do interesting work with interesting clients where you see your results daily. There is often a joke in every call, relaxed and not stiff atmosphere, we have a great deal of characters on the team which makes it fun to work here.”
Any advice on how to create a great work environment?
“We never blame anyone for not knowing something…we live in a world where it is impossible for an individual engineer to know all the technologies out there. We encourage our team to ask each other, we make offers to our clients to make exploratory tasks so we can see which technologies might suit a project, this leads to better transparency with clients and a good culture of discovery.”
Whether you are well aware of your strengths and what makes your company unique or you want to understand your value proposition for future clients and talent it is always enlightening to ask questions.
If you ever need help in the 3D space and want to explore great digital products we can help make that your customers will love please feel free to reach out to us.
If you want to join our team of 55 remote workers we would love to hear from you.
Wishing you future success in all you want to achieve.
Have you ever asked your company the question - How do we do what we do? We got curious at 4D Pipeline and sat down with one of our colleagues to see how we build hashtag#3D and hashtag#digital products for our clients like; Adidas, AUDI, Adobe, Target, IKEA, Honda, AMD, Intel, Dassault Systèmes, SolidWorks, TurboSquid, and Epic Games. In this article we pull back the curtain and take a look at the magic happening behind the scenes at 4D Pipeline. www.4Dpipeline.com/jobs