VoxxedDays Athens 2022 In this talk, we described the technological evolution of Workable during the first decade of its life. How the team topologies changed during this period and how the architecture was affected by these changes.

1. Architecture Evolution
as Company Scales
Nikos Dimos, Kostas Zacharakis

2. Hello!
Meet our speakers
Nikos Dimos
VP of Engineering
WORKABLE
Kostas Zacharakis
VP of Engineering
WORKABLE

3. What this talk is about?

5. OUR MISSION
To make it easy for
employers to find
the right person
for every job.

6. 26,000
COMPANIES
Where great companies
hire great people
Since 2012, the world’s best companies have
depended on Workable to find and hire the
people they depend on.
1,500,000
HIRES
115,000,000
CANDIDATES
100+
COUNTRIES
$84
MILLION IN
FUNDING

7. 5 Generations - 3 Pillars
1G
2G 4G
2012 - 2013 2014 - 2015 2016 - 2018 2019 - 2021 2022 - 2024
3G 5G
Software
Infra
People

8. Let's start from the beginning

9. git init ./workable

10. First Generation: The Monolith

11. In the beginning
1G - Monolith

12. In the beginning
1G - Monolith

13. In the beginning
1G - Frontend

14. In the beginning
1G - Infrastructure - PaaS

15. One codebase
tracked in revision
control, many
deploys
Explicitly declare
and isolate
dependencies
Store config in the
environment
Treat backing
services as attached
resources
Strictly separate
build and run
processes
Execute the app as
one or more
stateless processes
Export services via
port binding
Scale out via the
process model
Maximize
robustness with fast
startup and graceful
shutdown
Keep production,
staging and
production as similar
as possible
Treat logs as event
streams
Run admin or
managements tasks
as one-off processes
The Twelve-Factor App
https://12factor.net/

16. In the beginning
1G - Team topology

17. In the beginning
1G - In figures
LINES OF CODE
120K
In a single github repo
CONTRIBUTORS
6
5 Full-Stack 🥷
engineers
1 UI Designer
DEPLOYMENT
1
Single deployment in
Heroku
SYSTEM ENGINEERS
0
Shared responsibility
between engineers

18. Experiences & Challenges

19. Small but highly engaged and
productive team

20. Product evolves
at very fast pace

21. Continuous…development
and refactoring

22. Multiple roles and
responsibilities

23. Second Generation:
SPA & Satellite μServices

24. 2G - SPA & Satellite μServices
Things get interesting

25. Things get interesting
2G - Frontend

26. Things get interesting
2G - Satellite μServices

27. 2G - Team Topology
Things get interesting

28. Things get interesting
2G - In figures
LINES OF CODE
400K
⬆233%
In 5 repos
CONTRIBUTORS
19
⬆250%
9 Backend Engineers
4 Frontend Engineers
2 UI Designers
3 ML Engineers
1 Test Engineer
DEPLOYMENT
4
Deployments in
Heroku
SYSTEM ENGINEERS
0
Shared responsibility
between engineers

29. Experiences & Challenges

30. 2 pizzas are not
enough

31. Lack of
automation

32. Low release
confidence

33. Hello
Node.js!

34. Third Generation:
Beyond the Monolith

35. 3G - Beyond the monolith
Things get tricky

36. Beyond the monolith
3G - Frontend

37. Beyond the monolith
3G - (μ)Services

38. Beyond the monolith
Self-hosted Infrastructure

39. 3G - Team Structure
Beyond the monolith

40. Beyond the monolith
3G - Figures
LINES OF CODE
1.6M
⬆300%
In 25 repos
CONTRIBUTORS
51
⬆250%
19 Backend Engineers
17 Frontend Engineers
8 UI Designers
9 ML Engineers
5 Mobile Engineers
2 Test Engineers
1 Security Engineer
DEPLOYMENTS
25
⬆525%
Deployments in AWS
SITE RELIABILITY
ENGINEERS
4
In-house provisioning
tools for AWS

41. Experiences & Challenges

42. Increased
productivity

43. Disjointed
visual
identity

44. Strong coupling
between
services

45. State
sharing
across services

46. Transition
to AWS

47. Fourth Generation:
Event Sourcing & Design System

48. Things getting decoupled
4G - Event Sourcing

49. Design System
4G - Atomic Design
Design
System
Product
https://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com/

50. Atomic Design
Design System - Atoms

51. Atomic Design
Design System - Molecules

52. Atomic Design
Design System - Organisms

53. Design System
Components in action

54. Beyond the monolith
Self-hosted Infrastructure - Season 2

55. Fourth Generation
4G - Team topology

56. Things get interesting
4G - Figures
LINES OF CODE
3M
⬆150%
In 48 repos
CONTRIBUTORS
84
⬆71%
31 Backend Engineers
30 Frontend Engineers
10 Mobile Engineers
5 UI Designers
10 ML Engineers
5 Test Engineers
2 Security Engineers
DEPLOYMENTS
50
SITE RELIABILITY
ENGINEERS
9
Kubernetes in GCP
⬆100%
Deployments in GCP

57. Experiences & Challenges

58. Tailwind
direction
with
Kubernetes

60. Development
experience
In legacy
code

61. Increased
time
to deliver

62. Fifth Generation:
Rethinking the monolith(s)

63. Improve Dev XP
5G - Frontend Monolith

64. Improve Dev XP
5G - μFronteds

65. 5G - μFrontends
Module Federation

66. What about the legacy code?

67. Strangler Pattern
Incremental Upgrades

68. Strangler Pattern
Transform

69. Strangler Pattern
Coexist

70. Strangler Pattern
Eliminate

71. To summarize

72. Architecture evolution in 5 gens
1G - Monolith
2012 - 2013 2014 - 2015 2016 - 2018 2019 - 2021 2022 - 2024
2G - Satellite Services
3G - beyond the
monolith
4G - Event Sourcing & Design System
5G - rethinking
Monoliths

73. Team structures evolution
2012 - 2013 2014 - 2015 2016 - 2018 2019 - 2021 2022 - 2024

74. “Any organization that designs a
system (defined broadly) will produce a
design whose structure is a copy of the
organization's communication
structure.”
Melvin E. Conway
Computer scientist

75. “If the architecture of the system and
the architecture of the organization
are at odds, the architecture of the
organization wins”

76. Team dimensions

77. Team Size
Four Dimensions in Designing Team Structures
PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIPS
5
DEEP TRUST MUTUAL TRUST
50
REMEMBER
CAPABILITIES
150
15

78. Team Lifespan
Four Dimensions in Designing Team Structures
Forming
Norming
Storming Performing

79. Team Ownership
Four Dimensions in Designing Team Structures
“Every software
system should have
exactly one owner”

80. Team Cognition
Four Dimensions in Designing Team Structures

81. ● Language
● Framework
● Code design pattern

82. ● Deployment tools
● Configuration tools
● Interactions with other teams

83. ● Business Logic
● High Throughput Systems
● Distributed Systems

84. One size
doesn’t fit all

85. Thank you!

86. Enough about us. We're more interested in you. Talent sourcing is in our
blood, so if you're bright, bold and after more than just a job, get in touch.
We look forward to meeting you.
Explore at https://careers.workable.com
Join us