The partner

Truepill is a business-to-business provider of digital pharmacy services. The platform offers prescription fulfillment, telehealth services, and patient support to healthcare organizations, including lifestyle medication brands, healthcare payers, and providers. Truepill is backed by a network of pharmacies that dispense and deliver medications nationwide. Founded in 2016, Truepill was an important player in the pandemic's virtual-care boom.

The problem: Technical limitations

In its early days, Truepill relied on a standardized, commercial pharmacy management software.

"The software was mainly meant for small chains and couldn't handle high volumes," recalled Saro Iskenian, Truepill's Senior Engineering Manager. "As we started growing and onboarding new programs and clients, we realized the software was slowing us down."

To address scalability and flexibility issues with their current tech, the Truepill engineering team set out to tackle the challenging task of building an internal cloud-based pharmacy management system. Truepill uses a Kubernetes-based infrastructure, which can be tricky to master for developers more familiar with traditional hosting and development environments. To build the new system, Truepill would need to rapidly expand its developer team with nimble devs who could learn quickly.

The Howdy solution: A rapidly scaled, expert engineering team

Drawn to its efficient, integrative hiring approach, Truepill reached out to Howdy.

"Through Howdy, we were able to quickly scale our engineering team," Iskenian said. "Howdy was efficient with understanding our needs and the caliber of folks that we were looking for."

In particular, Iskenian appreciated the onboarding guidance Howdy provided the new hires.

"Behind the scenes, Howdy created an onboarding cheat sheet to help folks learn things quickly," he said.

The results: A sleek new internal software

"As soon as we brought the Howdy devs on, they were part of the team — just like employees who were employed with the company directly," Iskenian said. "Howdy creates a culture where folks join as full team members and they bring their full self: They bring their best work and even make suggestions."

With the help of Howdy teammates, Truepill built the pharmacy management system that the brand continues to use today.

"When we started building the system, it was a pilot that we used on a small scale," Iskenian said. "Eventually, we migrated most of the volume over there and now it's the de facto pharmacy management system."

Howdy players were a vital part of the platform's success, according to Iskenian.

"Howdy folks made huge contributions to the project," Iskenian said. "Their engagement with the company, the dedication they showed their teams, and their quality of work were great."

Impressed by the talent and commitment of the devs, Truepill quickly started pulling more Howdy players on board. Today, Truepill works with 14 Howdy developers, five of whom Iskenian oversees directly.

"When we source more engineers in the future, we will definitely balance the team with local and Howdy hires," Iskenian predicts.