Clients
Carta

Reducing Technical Debt in Equity Management

Fintech
San Francisco, CA
1 year
Django
Celery
CircleCI
DataDog
Python
5 stars
rating
60%
bug reduction

About Carta

Carta is a San Francisco-based company that provides an equity management platform. Carta's platform revolutionizes the way companies manage equity by providing an online solution that simplifies and automates the entire process. With a focus on accessibility and efficiency, Carta allows companies, from the early seed stage to pre-IPO, to electronically manage their cap tables, issue stock options, and handle equity transactions.

With its innovative approach and user-friendly interface, Carta's platform effortlessly bridges the gap between complex equity management and accessibility for companies of all sizes. By providing a centralized hub for equity management, Carta empowers companies to make informed decisions, enhance transparency, and streamline their operations.

By the end of 2015, Carta had completed a Series B funding round, raising $17 million and bringing its valuation up to $77 million. Carta's aim at that time was to expand its platform to serve small and mid-size businesses outside the US. However, to enhance its platform further, Carta needed a partner that would help them refine and expand their offering. This was how they bumped into Vinta.

“Initially, it seemed like an endless cycle of fixing local issues and encountering new bugs. Our target was to maintain only 10 to 15 bugs in the pipeline. In the first month, we reduced it from 50 to 20, thanks to their expertise.”
Gregg Kang, Former CTO
Carta

The Challenge

When Carta decided to enlist external assistance, they faced the challenge of a small development team needing to rapidly implement features, which inadvertently led to a surge in platform bugs. To bridge the gap between the need for technical talent and the time required to hire and train new developers, Carta sought external assistance.

Carta had three primary objectives in mind: accelerate the implementation of new features, reduce technical debt by addressing bugs and implementing comprehensive testing, and introduce industry best practices through external evaluation of their existing code and tools.

During the duration of the project, Vinta embraced the role of a supportive collaborator, working closely with the Carta team in a Staff Augmentation fashion to diligently address and resolve a wide range of software bugs. Our primary focus was not only to fix existing issues but also to implement regression tests, preventing those problems from resurfacing in the future.

Staff Augmentation projects thrive on close collaboration with the client, whether it be through in-person interaction or constant online communication. At Vinta, we seamlessly integrated into Carta's development process, utilizing Slack as our preferred communication tool to ensure a close working relationship. To maintain a smooth workflow, we aligned ourselves with Carta's existing practices by using Jira as our project management platform. This seamless integration allowed us to maximize efficiency and maintain optimal project momentum.

To ensure code quality and adherence to best practices, our team conducted thorough code reviews using GitHub. This meticulous review process upheld our commitment to excellence and high standards.

The outcome

Within just the first month of our engagement, Vinta made significant progress in reducing the number of open bugs from dozens to just a few. Throughout the one-year partnership, our dedicated team diligently worked to keep the total number of bugs as low as possible, promptly addressing and resolving issues of varying complexity, from HTML/CSS/JS to Python/Django.

By leveraging our extensive technical expertise and embracing a collaborative approach, Vinta played a pivotal role in enhancing the stability, reliability, and overall quality of Carta's software platform. Our unwavering dedication to delivering exceptional results exemplified our commitment to supporting Carta's success and reinforcing our position as trusted partners in their technology journey.

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