Preparing for Rapid Growth - Tips for Enabling Your Rails App and Team to Grow Quickly

Every young company expects to grow quickly, but is your engineering team really ready for it? In 3 years, iTriage went from a kitchen table to one of the leading mobile consumer healthcare apps with over 5 million downloads. Staying ahead of this growth didn't just mean hiring more Rails engineers.

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1. Preparing for Rapid Growth - Tips for Enabling Your Rails App and Team to Grow Quickly Patrick Leonard VP, Technology iTriage @patrickjleonard Tuesday, April 24, 12
2. first, you get the great idea for the new, new thing tale of a new product Tuesday, April 24, 12
3. then you form your initial team Tuesday, April 24, 12
4. then you build the initial product (possibly rushing just a bit to get it to market...) Tuesday, April 24, 12
5. and you get your first customers (then more investment, more growth - yea!) Tuesday, April 24, 12
6. but growth comes with challenges • users, customers and investors want more features • so you hire more software engineers • code debt and the resulting slow down Tuesday, April 24, 12
7. but growth comes with challenges • users, customers and investors want more features • so you hire more software engineers • code debt and the resulting slow down Productivity Code Debt Tuesday, April 24, 12
8. growing up gracefully • iTriage went from kitchen table to one of the leading consumer healthcare apps in 3 years • meeting this growth has meant more than just hiring more software engineers Tuesday, April 24, 12
9. how we architected for growth 1. technical architecture: re-architecting the product -- enabling high quality iOS, Android and Web Apps -- preparing for growth in Rails team and codebase 2. development and release management processes 3. recruiting and hiring strategies Tuesday, April 24, 12
10. • API for iOS, Android and Web App to consume • remove web views in favor of native in iOS / Android • unobtrusive Javascript for Web App 1. technical architecture enabling high quality iOS, Android and Web Apps Goal: remove tight-coupling between app and server Result: shorter release cycles, better UX, higher quality Tuesday, April 24, 12
11. function jQueryCall(url, params, callback) { $.ajax({ url: url, data: params, dataType: "jsonp", contentType: "application/json", success: callback }); } 1. technical architecture enabling high quality iOS, Android and Web Apps JQuery request: { "medications": [ { "id": 516, "name": "Abacavir" }, { "id": 3569, "name": "Abilify®" }, JSON response: Tuesday, April 24, 12
12. • separate functional modules using separate Rails apps • RESTful, versioned API (bias to JSON endpoints) 1. technical architecture preparing for growth in Rails team and codebase Goal: loose coupling within the Rails app Result: reduce “butterfly effect” bugs, shorter learning curve for new developers, easier releases & upgrades Providers Clinical Scheduling News Tuesday, April 24, 12
13. 1. technical architecture preparing for growth in Rails team and codebase iTriage Product Architecture - High Level iOS Android Web Rails Auth * (OAuth2) Profile * Location (Google Maps) Search * (Solr) Clinical Providers Scheduling News * Shared Services Functional Modules Analytics / BI / Big Data API API API API API API API API API Proxy Integ ration * separate Rails app Tuesday, April 24, 12
14. 1. technical architecture SysOps / DevOps automation iTriage Product Architecture - High Level iOS Android Web Rails Auth * (OAuth2) Profile * Location (Google Maps) Search * (Solr) Clinical Providers Scheduling News * Shared Services Functional Modules Analytics / BI / Big Data API API API API API API API API API Proxy Integ ration iOS Build Automate (Chef) Monitor CI / Test Suite Monitor Android Build Amazon Web Services Campfire Pivotal Tracker Google Apps github Tuesday, April 24, 12
15. 2. process Goal: velocity, quality, learning new skills • frequent, fixed-date releases • pull requests Result: higher velocity, actually hit release dates Tuesday, April 24, 12
16. 2. process • 3 week planning/release cycles (weekly releases for Rails) • App releases lag Rails release by 2 weeks Week 1 Rails Feature Development Rails QA/ Release Apps Feature Development Apps QA / Release Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 P C P C Tuesday, April 24, 12
17. 2. process Goal: org growth with minimal layers • more technical leadership, less “management” • teams aligned by API separation Result: flat organization, run by technology people Apps Rails QA Infra/ Analytics Tuesday, April 24, 12
18. 3. recruiting & hiring • passion for the technology and for our mission • interviewing: less talking, more coding Goal: screen for both attitude & aptitude Tuesday, April 24, 12
19. why do we work on iTriage? • we believe people should have immediate access to health information when and where they need it. • we believe people should have control of their own, and their family’s, health data. • we believe the healthcare system is broken and we are working to fix it by empowering consumers. Tuesday, April 24, 12
20. iTriage is growing and hiring • engineering team is growing in Rails and other areas • renovated a historic building in downtown Denver • visit our booth or about.itriagehealth.com/jobs/ Tuesday, April 24, 12
21. questions Patrick Leonard VP, Technology iTriage @patrickjleonard Tuesday, April 24, 12