The typical fast-growing commpany has expanded its development team to over 100 members, growing at a rate of approximately 15% per year. It utilizes a microservices architecture, with each team working on different parts of the overall application. The software is complex and feature-rich, but due to the rapid pace of development, it has accrued a significant amount of technical debt. This has begun to hinder the pace of new feature development and cause difficulties in maintaining the existing features.
In addition, the complexity of the application and a lack of comprehensive documentation mean that much of the knowledge about how the system works is held by a few key individuals. This has led to bottlenecks in development and the risk of knowledge loss if these individuals leave the company.
Inter-service communication and infrastructure management are also major challenges. Developers have to spend a significant amount of their time managing infrastructure and ensuring different microservices can communicate effectively. This takes away from their time to develop new features and maintain existing ones.
The company also struggles with developer turnover. The tech industry is highly competitive, and developers frequently move on to new opportunities. cost of hiring and onboarding new developers is significant, and there is often a delay before these new hires can contribute effectively due to the complexity of the system.
In conclusion, this company is in a challenging position. It must maintain its rapid pace of feature development to stay competitive, but the complexity of its application, technical debt, and challenges in knowledge management and infrastructure are significant obstacles. A solution like Gluecharm Studio is specially designed to help the company overcome these challenges and continue its growth trajectory.
Business Case
- Before using Gluecharm, the company spends 30% of their time on infrastructure management and inter-service communication issues.
- The average salary of a developer is $85,000 per year.
- The company employs 100 developers.
- The company has an annual turnover rate of 15%.
- On average, it takes 3 months to fully onboard a new developer.
- The cost of hiring a new developer, including recruitment and training costs, is 20% of their annual salary.
Now, let's detail the expected benefits and cost savings:
- Infrastructure Management Time Savings: If Gluecharm reduces time spent on infrastructure management by 20%, it would result in 6% (0.20 * 30%) of the overall development time saved. For a team of 100 developers, this would equate to the equivalent of 6 full-time developers, saving $510,000 (6 * $85,000) per year.
- Reduced Turnover Costs: With improved job satisfaction and career progression opportunities, if Gluecharm reduces turnover by 20% (from 15% to 12%), this would result in 3 fewer developers leaving each year. At a cost of 20% of a developer's salary to replace them, this would save $51,000 (3 * $85,000 * 0.20) per year.
- Shorter Onboarding Time: By reducing the time taken to onboard new developers by 20%, this would save one month's salary for each new developer hired. If 12 new developers are hired each year, this would save $85,000 (1/12 * $85,000 * 12) per year.
- Increased Development Time: With better knowledge preservation, clearer role definitions, and reduced dependency on individuals, let's say developers can spend an additional 10% of their time on feature development. This equates to the work of 10 full-time developers, potentially generating an additional revenue of $850,000 (assuming the output of each developer directly translates into $85,000 in revenue).
Total Benefits
When you add all these figures up, the total annual financial advantage of adopting Gluecharm Studio comes to $1,496,000. This total includes $646,000 in cost savings from more efficient infrastructure management, reduced turnover, and shorter onboarding times, as well as $850,000 in additional revenue from increased development time.
