How Bluesight Scaled Engineering While Maintaining Quality

Bluesight (formerly Kit Check) delivers end-to-end visibility and actionable analytics across the medication lifecycle. Their core product, Bluesight Insights, helps hospital pharmacies reduce drug spend, improve safety and compliance, increase staff productivity, and simplify medication management. Backed by nearly $50M in venture funding, Bluesight operates as a remote-first HealthTech company serving hospitals and healthcare organizations across the U.S.

The Challenge

Operating in highly regulated healthcare, Bluesight needed to scale its engineering team thoughtfully. Each hire has a measurable impact.

"We had to figure out how to work with a distributed team while maturing our agile processes, our software development practices. So you have to do both at the same time." - Vijay Venkatesh, CTO at Bluesight. 

Simultaneously maturing processes while scaling meant solving both in parallel. U.S. hiring alone couldn't deliver the velocity and quality needed. Regulatory constraints limited where certain team members could be based. The company needed access to a broader talent pool without compromising on technical excellence or cultural fit.

The Solution

Bluesight partnered with us as a true team extension. The focus wasn't labor arbitrage, it was finding great engineers who could contribute meaningfully from day one.

"I would describe it as a true extension of your team, caring, passionate engineers who are a part of your organization. If you can treat it that way and invest in it, you get tremendous returns."

Our vetting process made the difference. Instead of resumes alone, candidates were evaluated on open source contributions, demonstrated problem-solving, and communication skills. Engineers arrived for interviews already understanding Bluesight's mission and industry context. Conversations were substantive.

Time zone alignment amplified the benefit. Most hires work within 1-2 hours of U.S. time, enabling real-time collaboration during the critical first 30-60 days when new engineers are learning the company, culture, and product.

"I'm very impressed with communication across the board. We don't have to repeat certain concepts or principles. Even in cases where English may not be the first language, it's completely unnoticeable."  

Bluesight treated remote engineers as full members: same onboarding, same ceremonies, same career paths. This consistency prevented a two-tier culture from forming.

Direct Impact

Over three and a half years, Bluesight has hired 25+ engineers through Remotely Works across engineering and product. Performance feedback shows consistently strong hires, with several early placements, including one engineer described as "one of the most valuable team members", becoming cornerstones of the engineering organization.

One standout example: an engineer took on a stalled project to modernize a legacy UI framework that was 7-8 years behind on software upgrades. Working with QA, management, and peers, he unblocked the work and delivered immediate wins, faster, more responsive UI for customers; eliminated security vulnerabilities from outdated dependencies, and lasting organizational wins, establishing a repeatable process for future upgrades and creating a culture of ownership across teams.

"Both the direct and indirect impact will live on. He created both a culture of here's how to get it done as well as a thoughtful community kind of vibe."

Beyond individual projects, Remotely Works engineers spontaneously formed technical communities around infrastructure, DevOps, data, and UI/UX, self-directed guilds that became drivers of innovation and cross-team collaboration.

Key Results

• 25+ distributed engineers hired and actively contributing across engineering and product
• 1-2 hour time zone overlap enabling seamless onboarding and real-time collaboration
• Strong retention and growth: Early hires showing 2+ year tenures with promotions into senior technical roles
• Unblocked major initiatives: Technical projects that had stalled moved forward with focused ownership
• Sustainable scaling: Global talent access enabled engineering growth while maintaining healthy unit economics

Key Learning

Bluesight's experience reinforces what matters most: talent quality is paramount.

"You can hire mediocre talent and you will have to really do all kinds of magic to see some initiative or see some ownership. You can hire amazing talent, and you don't have to say anything and things will move—within a couple of months you will see ownership, change, momentum, movement."

The company's focus has always been on finding great people, whether local or distributed, and investing in them as true team members.

Communication is equally critical in distributed teams. Written fluency, verbal clarity, and thoughtfulness in explaining ideas aren't optional. They're primary selection criteria that directly impact hiring success and team integration.

Looking Ahead

As healthcare evolves and AI tooling becomes standard, Bluesight continues refining its hiring and team development approach, increasingly focused on engineers with the right mindset around learning and evolution.

The partnership with Remotely Works continues to deepen, with ongoing conversations about specialized or temporary engagements and exploring additional ways to strengthen the distributed team as Bluesight's needs become more sophisticated.