Case StudyExpert360 Elixir and GraphQL Architecture

Expert360 engaged Alembic to ensure that their technology stack would support higher scale, greater concurrency and enhanced security. We provided architectural strategy and support as well as training around Elixir and GraphQL to meet their business needs.

Prepare for Scale

Launched in Sydney, Australia in 2013, Expert360 is a freelance marketplace that helps enterprises connect with independent consultants at the upper tiers of the employee market. When businesses are looking for highly qualified, senior and executive positions, Expert360 enables connections.

When Expert360 made the decision to move into an international marketplace, they wanted to ensure their technology stack would support higher scale, greater concurrency and enhanced security. Alembic was hired to analyse Expert360's current state architecture and work with the technology team to architect a new technology stack to meet the business concerns.

Architecture Strategy

Alembic proposed a robust technology stack built on Elixir on the back-end and GraphQL for the APIs. Both parts of the technology stack improved the IT infrastructure in security and scalability. Alongside the teams within Expert360, Alembic planned the migration approach to the new technology stack, which included enabling the technical teams in the new technology.

Alembic worked closely with Expert360 to help us consolidate our multi-language microservice architecture across multiple source control repositories into a single Elixir umbrella application exposing a unified GraphQL API. Their approach was to engage our entire engineering team from the start and guide them gradually towards the target architecture over a few months with regular check-ins on progress, and hands on pair programming sessions.

Dan Draper, VP Engineering

Enablement

Alembic paired with the technical teams to migrate existing infrastructure to Expert360's new platform. We enabled the team through retooling and training in both Elixir and GraphQL, and helped Expert360 grow its technical capability with their wider development community.

The technology stack has helped Expert360 meet its business goals. Our initial engagement finished early as the enablement provided the technical teams at Expert360 the ability to quickly take on and manage their infrastructure and project delivery.

The majority of our code is now part of the target architecture. Hiring and on-boarding new developers as we grow is now a much simpler process; Elixir for the backend and JavaScript/React for the frontend. Our DevOps processes have also significantly improved. Tediously orchestrated feature releases across multiple microservices have been replaced by the deployment of a single application from a single repository.

Dan Draper, VP Engineering

Ready to Scale Up

Expert360 was bold with their technology choice; we love that they embraced modernising their technology stack. Sydney is growing the Elixir and GraphQL technology communities and Expert360 has been key in the process. They have a commitment to gender equality and equal opportunities which is close to our heart. They also opened their doors to the Elixir community to host meetups out of their office once a month.

The Expert360 tech stack

Just some of the tools we used on this project

Elixir Logo
GraphQL Logo

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