Case study

Building RedNevada’s resourcing artificial intelligence

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RedNevada is an AI technology start-up that is deploying the power of large-language models (LLMs) to enhance and automate recruitment and resourcing processes.

Set up by the founders of B2B technology resourcing and consulting partner BrightBox, RedNevada was building an AI-powered platform and it needed to create a production-ready minimum viable product (MVP) rapidly to get to market ahead of any competition.

In June 2023, after a rigorous selection process, it asked Opencast to help it build its new ‘resourcing artificial intelligence’ (RAI) product. An MVP went live in autumn 2023, to significant market acclaim.

  • RedNevada
  • Recruitment
  • Innovation and emerging technology

  • Faster processing and functional turnaround

  • Improved efficiency with better processes and automated testing

  • Faster go-to-market/run-readiness

Challenge

Use AI to improve business recruitment

RedNevada was set up by the founders of B2B recruitment business Brightbox to use the power of AI to improve the people resourcing process. They saw a market opportunity to break down the recruitment process into its constituent parts, including job descriptions, job adverts, CV analysis and screening, interview questions – then use AI to automate and improve the process.

The benefits case was substantial – to significantly accelerate the CV analysis and candidate selection process and more accurately map candidates to roles.

To establish itself ahead of any competition and secure a customer base, RedNevada wanted to speed up and formalise the development process, and so get to market faster, by adding technical and user-centred design expertise, as well as industry experience, to its team. So, in summer 2023, an Opencast product owner, senior developer and developer team joined the RedNevada team to help it build its new RAI app.

As a fledgling start-up, RedNevada had limited internal resources in terms of both people and available budget. It had a small in-house team focused on the AI technology and intellectual property. A prototype version of the RAI app had already been built by RedNevada’s developers. A key challenge was to build out that prototype, create a live production service and take a new MVP out to market.

Opencast’s involvement would provide efficient design and build within the constraints of the limited resources and timescales of a start-up.

Response

Create a product roadmap and build an MVP

Opencast worked with RedNevada’s Chief Executive Stuart Houghton to understand and develop his ideas and refine the priorities and features for the new RAI app, We embedded a team of three including a senior and junior developer, and a product owner.

To help deliver the best final outcome, Opencast also provided RedNevada a range of expertise beyond the embedded developer team, We offered flexibility in terms of resources, dropping people in and out of the project as they were needed. We also brought a versatile skillset and experience from other projects and industries.

To achieve this, we provided RedNevada with insights and expertise in usercentred design (UCD) and security. A UCD content designer assessed the emerging RAI product from a user perspective and made recommendations for how customers and clients could easily use the new app.

Opencast’s head of security services helped RedNevada to understand what it should consider for the security of the new app. And we helped the team to consider architectural choices.

RedNevada’s team was able to feed these broad insights into its emerging product road map.

Impact

MVP live with new paying customers

With Opencast’s expertise, Rednevada was able rapidly to launch its new RAI product into the market as an MVP, with several major features informed by our expertise in content design, security and software development. Fortnightly releases of production-ready code helped RedNevada accelerate the runreadiness of the MVP.

As a result of Opencast’s working as part of the broader team, several major features have been added to the new RAI product, to make it fit for its first public and production release.

The recommendations of our content designer for changes to the look and feel of the new app aligned the MVP with industry standards and complied with usability principles. And our security advice helped to ensure a safe and secure MVP that met industry standards and best practices, improving client confidence in the new product.

The RAI app went into production in October 2023, and it now has paying customers. RedNevada now has 40 to 50 brands a various stages of its sales funnel.

In November 2023, RedNevada extended the work programme of the Opencast team, with a focus on building out additional functional areas of the product.

200%

Doubling of development capacity

40-50

Brands in sales funnel

14

Fortnightly code releases

Technical details

Reworking CSS styles: to mimic initial look/feel from shadcn/ui used in the prototype.

Figma design: based on input from Opencast interaction designer.

Python, FastAPI, JavaScript: to build back and front end, and architecting solutions for future tasks.

LangChain framework: to enable seamless integration with AI.

Cypress: frontend/e2e tests.

Github: to build CI/CD pipeline.

Docker: for application consistency/portability across environments.

Redis: for login rate limiting, enhancing application security.

PostgreSQL: open source database for back end.

Opencast has been highly collaborative with the way they’ve operated with us at every step of the MVP development journey where we’ve either wanted to step up or reshape the team. What’s been really powerful is that we’ve been able to leverage insight and views from other areas of the business. It’s not been just them handing over their people and saying we’ll speak to you again when it comes around to a renewal.

Stuart Houghton

RedNevada

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