Hybrid Team Extension for SteamaCo

Background

SteamaCo is an Anglo-African company with a bold mission: to transform energy management in some of the most challenging regions in the world. Their IoT smart metering technology helps utilities across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia tackle challenges like energy theft and high operational costs.

With smart meters and remote management systems, they empower utilities to deliver clean, reliable energy — even in off-grid areas — while keeping everything efficient and affordable. By partnering with local energy providers and global technology innovators, SteamaCo is bringing intelligent energy solutions to more people and places.

Challenge

SteamaCo approached us with ambitious plans to scale their infrastructure to support over 1 million connected devices — an impressive goal that required significant backend and mobile development expertise.

The challenges we needed to address were clear.

Scalability: The SteamaCo platform had to handle a huge number of devices, and the client needed to get there fast.

New expertise: To keep up with the pace, they needed to bring in advanced backend and mobile development skills to accelerate feature releases.

Integration: Their platform had to seamlessly integrate with non-standard payment systems and smart meters from various manufacturers, each with its own protocols.

Security & performance: As the platform scaled, it was crucial to strengthen security and keep performance optimized, ensuring the system stayed robust without slowing down.

Project Recap
- SteamaCo needed scalable infrastructure, fresh technical expertise, and improved security to support their growing IoT platform.
- Beetroot provided a hybrid extension team with backend and mobile development specialists, helping to accelerate development and enhance security practices.
- Development velocity increased by 25-30%, infrastructure was prepared to scale to 1 million devices, and security vulnerabilities were reduced by 50%.
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Solution

To tackle SteamaCo’s challenges, Beetroot assembled a hybrid extension team of five full-time engineers (FTEs) working primarily on backend and mobile development. Over the course of two years, our team worked closely with SteamaCo to ensure the platform was ready for its ambitious growth plans.

Key contributions included:

Backend & Python Expertise: Our engineers brought in-depth Python and Django expertise to improve backend architecture and scalability. We also introduced modern development tools, such as linters and package managers, to boost code quality and security.
Rust Development: By introducing Rust, we significantly enhanced the backend’s performance, allowing it to handle more concurrent operations with ease.
Hybrid Extension for Increased Velocity: Beetroot developers integrated smoothly into SteamaCo’s existing team, completing onboarding in just two weeks to minimize downtime. Leveraging CI/CD pipelines and automation best practices, we set up a robust foundation for faster, more consistent development.
Infrastructure Scalability & Data Processing: The dedicated team enhanced the system’s infrastructure to support required 1 million devices. Tools like Kafka helped handle real-time data streams, and Elasticsearch improved data indexing.
Payment System & Smart Meter Integration: Our team implemented a range of non-standard payment systems and new smart meter models, ensuring seamless platform adaptability.
Cybersecurity & Performance Enhancements: Beetroot’s engineers implemented industry-leading cyber security practices, ensuring compliance with global standards, which is essential given the sensitive regions where SteamaCo operates.
Automation for Cost Optimization: By optimizing the AWS infrastructure and automating routine tasks, we helped the SteamaCo team reduce cloud costs, enabling them to focus on strategic goals.

Results

Our 2-year partnership with SteamaCo has been a truly rewarding journey. Our remote dedicated team delivered tangible results across scalability, security, and operational efficiency.

Key outcomes included:

Development Velocity: Feature delivery rate increased by 25-30%, allowing SteamaCo to respond quickly to evolving needs.
Deployment Time: Reduced by 30%, accelerating time-to-market for new features.
Infrastructure Readiness: Scaled to support up to 1 million devices with a consistent 99.9% system uptime.
Query Performance: Improved by 30%, allowing for real-time analysis of energy traffic with minimal latency.
Integration Success: Achieved a 95% success rate for non-standard payment system integrations and 100% success rate for smart meter manufacturer integrations.
Cybersecurity Improvements: Reduced vulnerabilities by 50% and ensured compliance with global information security standards.
Cost Efficiency: AWS infrastructure costs decreased by 20%, while automation cut manual workload by 40%, enabling more efficient operations.

As a mission-driven tech company, we’ve been truly happy to work with a like-minded team at SteamaCo. It was truly rewarding to work side by side to optimize processes and reduce costs, helping SteamaCo reach their ambitious goals and set a strong foundation for growth.

What our clients say

See some of our business partners’ reviews to get a sense of what to expect from our cooperation.

I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative
I would most definitely recommend Beetroot to other companies looking for offshore team members. If you want the cooperation to be successful, make sure you have similar culture and values. Be very clear on what you want and be picky — try to find the best fit possible. If you see things are not working out, don’t try to fix them. It’s better to drop the recruited candidate and go with another, even if it means starting the process over.

Adam Wamai Egesa.

Co-Founder and CTO at Normative