Code Enigma Provides Enterprises a Flexible, Full-Service Approach to Drupal Development — From Consultancy to Design and Hosting

TL; DR: Fueled by a love of Drupal and the open-source community at large, Code Enigma aims to help enterprises worldwide create comprehensive web solutions that leverage the CMS to its fullest extent. The company goes far beyond traditional support, offering the consulting and mentoring solutions businesses need to achieve their online objectives. With a diverse staff of web experts and an individualized take on support, Code Enigma is enabling businesses to experience the power of open-source CMS in a full-service package.

“It’s almost like working in Word.”

That was the response Helen Bird, an editor at Redactive Media, provided when asked what it’s like to use a Drupal site on a day-to-day basis at her publishing job. Code Enigma, a full-service development team specializing in Drupal, helped Redactive Media migrate from its legacy content management system to the open-source platform in 2013 with positive results.

The media group, which already had an in-house digital team, initially contacted Code Enigma for help building its Drupal skills. In response, Code Enigma put a senior developer on site with the publishing company to get its team up and running on the platform immediately.

Based in London with a presence across the globe, Code Enigma has helped a number of companies like Redactive Media make the most of Drupal. The key, according to Marketing Manager Maygen Jacques, is guiding them through a full-service development process that includes a suite of consultancy, design, and hosting solutions.

“Ultimately, we do all of these things so our clients can attract and delight their audiences and attain their business goals,” Maygen said.

In the eight years since Code Enigma was born, the company’s mission has been just that — to create comprehensive web solutions backed by consulting and mentoring services from a team of experienced developers. Inspired by a passion for open-source technology, Code Enigma now helps enterprises worldwide make a successful turn away from proprietary platforms.

Code Enigma was founded in 2010 after current Director Greg Harvey merged his Drupal development agency, CMS Professionals, with Pilot Internet. Greg, based in France, had founded CMS Professionals in 2008 and had become a well-respected figure in the Drupal community. The integrated company is now based in the heart of London with operations spanning seven countries.

“We’re distributed, but you’ll struggle to find a company that communicates more,” Maygen said.

The Code Enigma staff consists of a team of 16 development, web design, hosting, system administration, project management, and content strategy experts based in the U.K. as well as Argentina, Australia, France, and Spain. Although the company used to refer to itself as a web agency, Maygen said today it represents so much more.

“The benefits of working with us are encompassed into our company values: We’re experts, we bring creativity, and we’re honest,” she said.

The company’s portfolio is wide-ranging, starting with a collaborate design-build process based on quality and delivery. Code Enigma works closely with businesses to thoroughly understand their objectives through interviews, workshops, and audits before developing and testing prototypes. The goal is to leverage the flexibility of open-source CMS to create content-rich websites that serve as essential business tools.

“We select the right tools for the job, have years of diverse experience, and pay attention to fundamentals and best practices,” Maygen said. “We do things deliberately; we are considered with our time.”

The Drupal, design, and hosting space has changed drastically in the eight years since Code Enigma was founded, and in that time, the company has worked to overcome various challenges. As WordPress and proprietary platforms crowd the marketplace, Maygen said the company likes to remind enterprises of Drupal’s strengths.

“Being firmly at the ‘Enterprise’ end of Drupal development, a big challenge in that space is people have stopped asking for Drupal — it’s no longer the wonder kid of the CMS market that everybody automatically wants,” she said. “People used to find us because we are Drupal experts; now we have to go find people and tell them how great Drupal is. It’s quite a reversal.”

Code Enigma steadfastly believes that Drupal is still the best CMS available — a fact that Maygen said the company’s services confirm. On the hosting side, she said trends in containerization and advances in cloud platforms have dominated product development concerns.

“It’s been tricky when our core development product isn’t ideally suited to that product landscape, so we’ve had to extend beyond Drupal to push our development,” she said. “Drupal itself is reacting to this push toward services; for example, it has started pitching itself as a content engine only — hence the term ‘headless Drupal,’ where the visual part of a site is entirely decoupled from the content management part of a site.”

Maygen said the company is on a mission to offer premium services and products to premium-level organizations, including government, research, and science facilities as well as the media, charity organizations, and firms with a social conscience. She said that ultimately, the company can fulfill the needs of any organization.

“We’re proud of our flexibility,” she said. “We are a family of creative souls and the technically brilliant, and we apply our collective knowledge and experience to each project. We love a challenge because it means we have to find a solution that works.”

When it comes to customer support, Code Enigma offers all of the bells and whistles you’d expect — a 24/7 ticketing system, a solid service level promise, updates to Drupal modules and code — plus a range of consultancy services.

“One size does not fit all when it comes to anything, let alone server management,” Maygen said. We used to call our offering ‘hosting,’ but we do more than offer cloud space and we want to communicate this. We don’t want to be cliché and claim we can cater to everyone, but we really can.”

“Whether through a preferred infrastructure partner or internal servers, we provide full server management,” Maygen said. “All we need is secure shell access to a cleanly installed server, and we take it from there.”

The company’s sysadmins also deliver support to developers and build systems on the AWS platform. “Whether we manage an account on your behalf or the entire set-up, we can help you achieve,” Maygen said.

According to Maygen, Code Enigma’s hands-on approach has roots in its devotion to community. “Collaboration is key, both internally and with customers,” she said. “When you work with us, you become part of the collective.”

As with any open-source project, Drupal relies on a diverse community of volunteers to drive the CMS forward. To that end, all of the developers at Code Enigma have either contributed or supported modules on Drupal.org, and once a month the team spends an entire work day maintaining code on the site. Many of them are core contributors to Drupal 8.

Code Enigma provides links to each staff members’ Drupal profile to illustrate exactly how they contribute to the open-source community. Maygen herself contributes to Drupal 8 marketing materials. Director Pascal Morin has been working with the CMS for 10 years and four months, contributing to patches, modules, issues queues, and other related services. Senior Developer Dan Smith, a member of the Drupal Security Team, organized the first Manchester Drupalcamp in 2008 — and the list goes on.

Aside from an evident devotion to the Drupal community, Code Enigma’s company culture was built on a foundation of trust, collaboration, and open-source values.

“We protect the culture we’ve sculpted at Code Enigma by hiring those who fit with our values,” Maygen said. “ The thing we’re most proud of is that we’re a family. We avoid outsourcing and use freelance staff periodically to enhance our team, but otherwise, we’re organic.”

Maygen added that, while the company lives and breathes technology, it’s undeniably human.

“We work with people, not websites,” she said. “We’re human, we’re all unique, and that’s what makes us, us. It’s who we are, together: We hear each other out respectfully, we’re not afraid to have fun, and we’re always actively interested in or excited by our work — otherwise, there’s simply no point.”