Take Your App Development to the Moon(cascade)!

BERLIN, Germany - Today, Pangea is delighted to feature Mooncascade, one of the brightest moons of our universe! Joining us in 2016, this storied Estonian software development company has been providing top-notch UX Design, product engineering, and QA for over ten years. Although they primarily work with FinTech, the flexible and adaptive company has a wealth of experience to help with whatever you need!

A Rad Moon Rising

Mooncascade was founded in 2009 at the height of the Great Recession by four longtime software engineers with extensive coding experience that ranged from high-level hacking to building the mobile team at Skype. Even with such an impressive pedigree, the terrible global economic situation at the time meant the company’s first office was actually the apartment of one of their grandmothers! Despite such humble origins, Mooncascade was able to withstand the global downturn through hard work and creativity (like a marketing stunt to develop several MVPs in just 48 hours) and now ranks among Estonia’s leading tech companies.

According to Anu Einberg—Mooncascade’s CEO since 2018—the company’s roots as a small startup has given them the insight and attitude to handle whatever needs their clients may have:

“We have a startup mindset and understand the product development approach needed when working with startups. The same approach offers value when building innovative products for large corporations as well when serving more complex and often the legacy-dependent needs of our corporate partners.”

This can-do approach has led Mooncascade to become one of the fastest-growing software development companies in the region. When we spoke with the company back in 2016, they were riding a hot streak of awards for their rapid and sustainable growth: after winning the Gazelle Award three years running (2013-2015), Mooncascade was honored by the German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce Award and the Swedish Business Awards in 2016. Over the years, they’ve also been recognized as finalists in the European Business Awards for Entrepreneur of the Year and the Estonian Business Awards for Company of the Region and Exporter of the Year, and received commendations from two different Estonian presidents!

Clearly, Mooncascade has a proven track record of excellence that is reflected in their solid overall Pangea Score of 8.2/10.0. But what exactly is the secret to the company’s continued success? Let’s take a trip to the Mooncascade HQ to investigate a bit more!

Balance + Vibe + Purpose = Employee Satisfaction

Mooncascade employees (and animal friend) enjoying some downtime

From the very beginning, Mooncascade has a culture of openness and adaptability that values the personal and professional well-being of each of their almost 70 employees. To help foster this, the company offers individually-tailored training programs, internal camps, and a peer mentorship program.

Moreover, every year Mooncascade conducts a survey of employee satisfaction to gauge whether their benefits are matching their team’s expectations. Interestingly, they’ve determined that many of the standard tech offerings (free food, competitive salaries, etc.) are no longer considered perks but baseline expectations, and that real satisfaction boils down to three main components: work-life balance, a great team vibe, and a sense of purpose. So, Mooncascade has embraced remote work, flexible working hours, office events—like get-togethers, movie nights, and Nintendo Switch LAN parties—and strives to make sure their work is both meaningful and interesting.

To the last point, Mooncascade also gives their team every opportunity to learn new languages and skills, with plenty of options for advancement towards becoming Technical Lead or moving into management. Indeed, the CEO Anu actually worked her way up through the company from QA through project management and finally COO before assuming her current position. This kind of mobility and supportive company culture has resulted in Mooncascade having a 96% first-year retention rate and excellent Team Health scores in advocacy (8.6/10.0) and in employee well-being (8.0/10.0). All things considered, sounds like a wonderful place to work!

Cascades of Compliments

“We take pride in the clients we work with and the products we create.”

- CEO Anu E.

Mooncascade’s commitment to excellence doesn’t end with their employees; they are dedicated to providing the highest quality of service to their clients as well. From unicorn startups like Transferwise to established multinationals like Merck, Mooncascade has helped a plethora of companies of all stripes. Although they primarily deal with FinTech and banking, they have considerable experience with the transportation industry and work with all the major Nordic telecom operators.

Notably, before engaging with a new client, Mooncascade makes sure that the potential partner shares their own company values. By cultivating mutual respect and a common vision, the company can be sure that their team can take ownership of the work and truly commit to making meaningful ideas come to life. This collaborative ethos helps ensure their clients are receiving impactful products that “inspire, disrupt, and challenge markets around the world.”

Back in 2016, we spoke with a number of Mooncascade’s many satisfied clients, and they all had nothing but positive things to say about the company. This translated to a Client Score of 8.8/10.0, with particularly excellent scores in project management (9.0/10.0), technical expertise (9.0/10.0), UX design (8.9/10.0), and customer journey (8.8/10.0). But then the numbers only tell a part of the story; just a look at the amount of praise heaped on the company by their partners and you can’t help but be impressed:

“Mooncascade has been building our Mobile product since day one, throughout all its transformations. Our deep partnership with this software development company has an important role in our global success today and also in the future.”

- Norris Koppel, Founder & CEO at Monese

“Mooncascade helped us scale a critical team very quickly. The engineers onboarded at an amazing pace and were contributing at the level of our internal engineers. It shows the experience and professionalism of the engineers at Mooncascade.”

- Ingmar Krusch, VP Engineering @ solarisBank

“Mooncascade team was proactive and put a lot of effort into quick onboarding, they even took the time to visit the warehouse to understand our real-life processes better. A friendly co-operation in every sense.”

- Petr Reshetnikov, Staff Software Engineer @ Bolt

“It is clear that [Mooncascade] are a team of experienced and professional developers, and we are glad to continue the partnership with them.”

- Taavet Hinrikus, CEO and co-founder @ Wise (previously TransferWise)

“Mooncascade has continuously delivered high-quality products that we are very satisfied with. The development team is knowledgeable and passionate. They always consider the end-user point of view when new business requirements are presented to them. That has resulted in a product that we can be happy with.”

- Andrew Dawson, Commercial Director @ Indigo

“Mooncascade has been a great support in consulting Lattelecom to transform us into a data-driven company. They bring far greater value than just technical expertise but think along on the strategical lines and help to choose the best approach.”

- Krists Avots, Head of Corporate Development and Strategy @ Lattelecom

“As an innovation partner Mooncascade has proven themselves to think outside of the box. Together we have thought of new ideas and executed these into software products[...] For companies seeking digital innovation Mooncascade is a partner to take on new opportunities.”

- Daniel Lübberstedt, Head of Demand and Service Management @ Merck

A Full(-Stack) Moon

Engineers hard at work in the Moonscape HQ

Mooncascade began as a mobile-first company, but over the years have adapted to their client’s needs and today offer a complete suite of services ranging from UX design to data science, project management to QA. When it comes to their tech stack, Mooncascade covers all the bases including front-end (HTML5, JavaScript frameworks like Angular and React), back-end (Golang, PHP, .NET), mobile (Swift, Kotlin, Java, C++), and machine learning (Python). Plus, the company is certified as both a Google Cloud and Amazon AWS partner so cloud computing is also on the table.

Not only that, but their competencies are constantly growing based on current trends and client needs. Before taking on a project that uses new or untested technology, the teams at Moonscape typically create a low-stakes in-house project to familiarize themselves with the language. For instance, they tested React Native (and using Swift as a backend tool) by building a “Tinder for cats” for a local charity; the quirky app ended up being featured on Estonian news and earned the company an award at the 2019 ADC*E Estonian Design Awards!

So, if you are looking to develop a market-changing product Mooncascade can certainly shine some light on the process! If you are at all curious about contracting with them, just head over to their engagement page, and we can connect you with a company whose “flexibility, professionalism,​ and technical prowess are second to none.”