Skillo

The Client

We were approached by one of Europe’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges to build a secure and scalable crypto banking system for their suite of products.

The client is a large-scale company with over 100 employees, and is renowned for its security and adherence to strict regulatory guidelines.

The Project

From the start, the client made their mission statement perfectly clear – give their users access to tax-free, fully regulated bank accounts through which to buy and sell crypto assets in only a few clicks, as well as transfer money over both bank and crypto accounts – in seconds. All this as part of an airtight, secure package that protects users’ assets so they can confidently buy, sell, and trade on the platform.

While ambitious, we were committed to providing a solution that’s not just highly competitive, but best-in-class.

Key Challenges

• Enhancing Team Expertise

Educating the team on the nuances of different types of wallets, as well as module performance across operating systems.

• Performance Bottlenecks & Scalability Challenges

The system used MTAN (Mobile transaction authentication number) – a limitation on performance and unscalable due to its high SMS costs

• Compliance Challenges

Strict regulatory requirements and restrictions

Our Solution

• Scalability, Security and Performance

We replaced MTAN with a more scalable, secure, and user friendly solution that also exceeded existing performance

• A Phased Rollout Strategy

The rollout consisted of milestones: first with crypto transactions, followed by the login flow, and finally with third-party integrations

• Bridging Skill Gaps

Bridging of skill shortages within the company with a carefully selected team of in-house Skillo experts

The Client

• The client was a telematics fleet management company with over 1000 employees, with their products including everything from on-board diagnostics to CO2 emissions reporting.  They’re also a pioneering force in fleet management and EV adoption, and support industries as diverse as logistics, government, pharmaceutical, and everything in between.

The Project

We were tasked with decomposing, evaluating, and recombining two monolithic applications into a collection of wholly independent, fully scalable, and effortlessly maintainable microservices.

The client was looking for overall improvements to system agility, reducing time-to-market for new features, and enhancing fault isolation.

This bevy of hardware technologies, software features, and marketing and business goals posed a uniquely complex set of interrelated challenges, and at first glance might’ve seemed as functionally infinite.

Key Challenges

• Streamlining Development Cycles

Тackling the existing large-scale architecture, which presented significant challenges – including slow development cycles due to tight component coupling.

• Lack of Documentation

Multiple potential risks, including Integration issues, data loss, performance degradation, and other unexpected side effects.

• Scaling and Cascading Failures

Difficulty in scaling individual components independently. Increased risk of cascading failures.

Our Solution

• Established auto-scaling capabilities

Chose a cloud-native environment to handle fluctuating workloads.

• Improved Microservices Architecture

Established and fostered clear service boundaries and independent deployments.

• Monolith to Distributed Migration

Safely and efficiently migrated data from monolithic databases to a distributed architecture.

• Rigorous Testing

Unit integration and end-to-end tests for each microservice

• API-first

Utilized API gateways to manage traffic and ensured smooth integration with other systems, tested API compatibility between services.

• Debugging and Troubleshooting

Utilized distributed tracing tools to identify and resolve microservice issues.

• Scalability, security and performance

Improved performance and optimized processes through thorough monitoring.

• Advanced understanding of dependencies

Identified and isolated dependencies between components within and across monoliths.

• Bridging skill gaps

Eliminated skill gaps within the client’s team in different areas, including containerization, distributed systems, and others.

We worked with one of the largest investment firms in the world, who currently manages some of the most prevalent names in the current tech space, and employs over 10,000 people across their global operations.

The client wanted us to develop a subledger system for their financial portfolios.

The primary objective of the project was to improve the quality of the product and make it more resilience to regressions. 

What we did?

• Created and distributed a common QA framework. This framework was continuously developed over the two year span of the project, and we built additional features on top to enhance the QA process

• As part of a Scrum methodology, multiple pipelines were configured to execute tests on a nightly basis, and this was done through Azure DevOps.

• Successfully transfered knowledge over to the client’s internal team, with both code and experience seeing reusability in different internal projects.

As a result 80% ot all tests were automated and we achieved two times fatser releases.

Through our consistent work on this two-year project, we were able to significantly and lastingly improve the quality of our partner’s product, making their system more stable and increasing operational potential, with new versions able to be released with increased confidence.

For this project, we worked with one of the largest insurance companies in the US, which boasts over 10,000 employees and offers a wide range of health plans and services to individuals, families, and businesses, serving millions of clients within the country.

The client employed a vast technology stack for which we primarily focused on frontend technology development.

The main objective was to enhance their frontend development processes for both web and mobile platforms, optimize component reusability, and improved internal development pacing – all while ensuring high-quality, testable components. 

What we achieved?

• Improved efficiency - faster development cycles through reusable React Native components
• Optimized codebase - improve code quality through automated testing and CI/CD processes
• Refined mobile development - a more efficient and scalable mobile development process
• Enhanced business operations - reduce time-to-market for mobile updates through an increase in code maintainability

Our client was a prominent European financial holding who operates in a highly competitive and regulated financial industry, providing non-banking financial services across the entirety of the European region. 

The company has more than 8,000 employees located in different European countries.

They are rapidly growing and expanding their portfolio of services, including loans for small and medium businesses, consumer loans, credit cards, etc.

Facing growing demands for frequent, high-quality updates and the addition of new functionalities to their financial products, the client’s development (DEV) and quality assurance (QA) teams were under significant pressure. There was a real risk of losing multiple leading positions within their industry. 

Outdated processes, a lack of capacity, and siloed teams further exacerbated the situation. To address these concerns, we were tasked with modernizing their R&D process, enhancing team collaboration, and ensuring a faster delivery of high-quality products.

Through our collaborative approach, we transformed the client’s product development process, enabling them to meet customer demands for faster and higher-quality updates. By addressing critical challenges and introducing scalable solutions, we positioned the European financial holding for sustained growth and innovation. 

The success of this partnership has since expanded to include more Software Engineering teams and BI developers, ensuring the client’s continued ability to stay ahead in a competitive market.