The document discusses Zalando's approach to improving tech organization and architecture for scalability, focusing on attracting talent, enhancing team happiness, and fostering innovation through diversity and open-source practices. It emphasizes the importance of team autonomy for rapid feature development and a state-of-the-art architecture that supports various programming languages and easy A/B testing. The presentation highlights Zalando's growth metrics, organizational structure, and strategies for maintaining a consistent user experience while enabling various feature teams to work in parallel.

1. How We Made Our
Tech Organization
and
Architecture
Converge Towards
Scalability
Dan Persa
@danpersa
commerce.codetalks
April 2016
Berlin, Germany

2. 2
Senior Software Engineer
@danpersa
dan.persa@zalando.de
DAN PERSA

3. 3
Tech Organization Scalability
Productivity
Architecture Scalability
TABLE OF
CONTENTS

4. EUROPE’S LEADING ONLINE FASHION PLATFORM
15 countries
3 fulfillment centers
18+ million active customers
~3 billion € revenue 2015
130+ million visits per month
10.000+ employees
Visit us: tech.zalando.com

5. 5
ZALANDO FASHION STORE

6. 6
ZALANDO
TECHNOLOGY

7. 7

10. 500+
Apps
1100+
Tech employees
2016

12. 12
Conway’s Law
“organizations which design systems
...are constrained to produce
designs which are copies of the
communication structures of these
organizations”

13. 13
WHY CHANGE?

14. TECH ORGANIZATION SCALABILITY
ATTRACT NEW,
TALENTED PEOPLE
KEEP THE TEAMS HAPPY
CREATE DIVERSITY ENCOURAGE INNOVATION

15. 15
ATTRACTING
NEW TALENT

16. HIRING AS A PRIORITY
FAST FEEDBACK
900-1100
INTERVIEWS/MONTH
INSPIRING TALK

17. x
DO GOOD
THINGS
AND TALK
ABOUT IT

18. 18
CONFERENCES
MEETUPS
TECH BLOG

19. 19
KEEP TEAMS
HAPPY

20. x
900 participants
100 projects
100 nationalities
12 awards

21. 21
Tech Academy

22. 22
CODER DOJOS

23. 23

24. x
How to
measure team
happiness?

25. 25
CREATE
DIVERSITY

26. 26
Zalando technologists come from more than 72
countries around the world. With so many languages,
backgrounds, beliefs and ideas, how do we make it
work? By celebrating our diversity and learning from
each other. We are all different, but we are all
Zalandos.
MANY BACKGROUNDS, ONE TEAM

27. 27
ENCOURAGE
INNOVATION

28. x
OPEN
SOURCE

29. 29
http://zalando.github.io/

30. 30
Do “Open Source First”
If your Zalando project can also be useful to non-Zalandos, release it as open
source from the start.
Share Your Code
All code shared between teams must be open source.
Be Safe
To ensure the broadest possible use of your project, use the MIT License only.
Deliver Quality
Provide a great out-of-the-box experience.
OPEN SOURCE PRINCIPLES

31. 31
Slingshot

32. 32
ONBOARDING

33. 33
PRODUCTIVITY

34. 34
The Tech Constitution

35. 35

36. 36
OKRS
COMPANY OKRS
FASHION STORE OKRS
OTHER DEPARTMENT
OKRS
PATHFINDER TEAM
OKRS
OTHER FASHION
STORE TEAM OKRS
LOGISTICS OKRS ...
...

37. ARCHITECTURE SCALABILITY
MANY TEAMS WORKING AT
DIFFERENT FEATURES IN PARALLEL
TEAM AUTONOMY
ADD FEATURES FAST
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
DIVERSITY
EASY A/B TESTING AND REMOVING
FEATURES

38. 38
THE SHOP
MONOLITH

39. 39
Meet
“Jimmy”
http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/

40. Thousands of Java classes, undocumented features
Business logic on all layers (including the database),
while “channels”, copy-pasta JSPs and global JS objects
in the frontend

41. x
State-of-the-art
architecture that
enables
autonomy and
fosters
innovation

42. 42
Put the Jimmy to REST!
Enable team autonomy
Consistent user experience
Rapid feature development
Continuous deployment
Establish best practices
Tech stack update
PROJECT MISSION

43. INTERNET
SKIPPER
router
JIMMY
INNKEEPER
route management API
TAILOR
layout service
QUILT
template management API
FRAGMENTS REST APIs

44. HEADER
CART
TAILOR
layout service CART FRAGMENT
Team COAST
HEADER FRAGMENT
Team Navigation
QUILT
template management API
CART TEMPLATE
TRACKING TRACKING FRAGMENT
Team TRCKNG
https://cart.coast.zalan.do
https://eb-fragment.trckng.zalan.do
https://header-fragment-release.navigation.zalan.do
From Skipper
https://zalando.de/cart

45. Translation Service
Team Pathfinder
IAM API
Team GreendaleFRAGMENT
Your Team API
Your Team
From Tailor
HTML Render
AJAX APIs
Internal API Client
From Skipper
Cart Service
Team COAST

46. 46
API FIRST REST

47. 47
MANY TEAMS
WORKING AT
DIFFERENT FEATURES
IN PARALLEL

48. 48
STUPS.IO

50. x
NEW HIRES
Feb 2015 - 13
March 2015 - 25
Feb 2016 - 54
March 2016 - 61

51. x THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
@danpersa