See How JetThoughts Helped Stabilize Open Apply’s Code & Transform Their Product’s UX

Client Overview

OpenApply is a fast-growing software platform to help simplify the admissions and enrollment processes for applicants around the world with a paperless, integrated online experience.

They initially reached out to JetThoughts to help stop regressions, revamp the user experience, scale feature development, and streamline internal development processes.

Vision

Open Apply envisioned an upgrade of their technology operations from end-to-end: fewer bugs, better UX/UI, faster development, and higher-quality releases..

Because Open Apply was growing so quickly, they needed to level up both their software and their internal processes in order to maintain momentum.

Problem

Open Apply’s initial launch was a huge success and customers grew rapidly. However, their product wasn’t designed to properly address the level of scale they had already reached.

With an outdated user interface, bugs emerging faster, and an inability to expand the product, Open Apply knew it needed to make big changes to accommodate increasing demand.

Solution

JetThoughts provided a fractional CTO resource to help guide the project and 2 full-time engineers to act as a virtual development team for Open Apply.

In addition, we provided a dedicated project advisor to bring real-time visibility into progress and ensure alignment with the leadership team at Open Apply.

Approach

From the very beginning of the engagement, JetThoughts provided Open Apply’s team with deep technical guidance based on decades of experience to help ensure a successful outcome.

We started the project with a kick-off meeting where we set expectations for the engagement, learned about the software, and aligned around a winning strategy.

To begin, we first prioritized tackling the unstable code with hundreds of bugs. This required both resolving these technical issues and setting up the analytics & testing processes to prevent future bugs.

From there, we collaborated with Open Apply’s team to redesign & rewrite the entire user interface while upgrading the Ruby on Rails code supporting the product.

Once we tackled these priorities, we helped optimize the internal software development & project management processes at Open Apply while helping them grow a development team.

Outcome

• Upgraded Code Quality from F to A & Improved Readability
• Reduced Bug Risks via Best Practices & Testing Systems
• Scaled Internal Team from 2 to 20 Developers