Industry
Technology
JavaScript
Node.JS
SQL databases
Google Cloud
GraphQL
Kubernetes
React
Express
TypeScript
AWS
TypeORM
Services
Customer’s Location
New York, NY, the USA
A Brief Summary
- TL;DR: Our client is Smartrr, a New York-based subscription management platform for DTC Shopify brands, with native loyalty features like rewards and referrals built around customer retention.
- Smartrr was a six-month-old startup with a growing platform but no QA process. They needed a QA team built from scratch, then more development and DevOps capacity as their existing architecture hit performance and security limits.
- ELITEX started with 2 QA engineers and grew into a 9-person embedded team covering QA, DevOps, frontend, backend, project management, and support. We built testing processes from zero, split the monolith into two services, migrated messaging from Amazon SQS to GCP Pub/Sub, and added centralized logging.
About the Project
Smartrr is a premium subscription tool for DTC Shopify brands, built with the end customer in mind. It plugs directly into Shopify and brings together everything a subscription business needs: customer and vendor interfaces, integration support, and analytics. On the customer's side, the platform delivers a membership experience built around exclusive offers and discounts. On the vendor's side, it replaces spreadsheet work with a powerful admin panel, where real-time analytics and reporting handle mundane tasks.
Smartrr's native loyalty features cover rewards and referrals, plus tools that connect commerce with a community of influencers and creators. The whole approach rests on the bond between customer and brand, supported by smart retention, mobile-first design, and subscription management over email and SMS. Customer support and ongoing onboarding round out the package.
The Challenge
ELITEX started collaborating with Smartrr at the very early stages of the development when the startup was around 6 months old. At this phase, Smartrr was a small but fast-growing and promising team. The initial reason for contacting ELITEX was to replenish the startup with the necessary human resources, as the Smartrr team was looking for additional technical expertise. Firstly, Smartrr was looking for QA specialists since, at that time, their team did not include any. At this stage, the goal was to create a quality assurance team and establish testing processes from scratch.
Furthermore, as the robust QA team was built, it became evident that the existing team of developers also needed to be augmented. As Smartrr successfully expanded and grew, the company decided to find additional front and back-end developers, as well as DevOps professionals, to meet the growing demands of the business.
As the work on the project progressed, the specific areas where technical changes were needed also became apparent. The original monolithic architecture had optimization and performance issues; specific security vulnerabilities were also detected. Simultaneously, the automation of QA processes, as well as the improvement of scalability, stability, and availability of the product, became a high priority during the following stages of collaboration.
The Solution
The partnership started small. ELITEX joined Smartrr with two QA engineers, and the team grew from there. A DevOps engineer came next, then backend and frontend developers, two more QA specialists, a project manager, and tech support. By the end, 9 ELITEX specialists were working as a full part of Smartrr's in-house team.
Smartrr had no QA function at all when we joined, and the product was already live. So our engineers built everything from the ground up. The first job was documentation. After getting to know the product properly, the QA team wrote detailed test cases for both the vendor and customer sides of the platform.
Manual testing came first. Then the team moved on to new feature tests, regression analysis, user experience fixes, and a plan for automating QA. Because the partnership ran on honesty and transparency, our specialists had a free hand to shape the work as they saw fit.
QA automation is still ongoing. The team uses TypeScript with the Playwright framework to build automated tests that cut testing time across the board. Right now the focus is autotests that shrink regression cycles, which frees up more time for feature testing.
VP of Engineering at Smartrr
They offer us QA services, and their QA team is phenomenal. We have biweekly releases, but we very rarely find unknown bugs due to the competency of their team.
In terms of the platform’s infrastructure and architecture, ELITEX developers adopted several important decisions to improve the project’s performance and provide the end customer with a better user journey:
- The monolith structure of the platform was broken into two parts. It helped Smartrr avoid overload of the backend, and it became way more responsive;
- We developed a set of scripts that helped to migrate from Amazon’s SQS to GCP pub/sub, which improved the overall stability of the platform and prevented the loss of data;
- Additionally, the centralized logging system, tagging, and monitoring dashboards were created as a matter of overall performance improvement.
VP of Engineering at Smartrr
ELITEX has an excellent screening process for the new positions available we might have. They always do a very extensive technical screening so that, when I get on the phone with the candidates, there’s already a high level of confidence that they have the skillsets that we need. This process helps us shorten the time it takes to onboard new resources because our initial conversations with the candidates revolve around finding out if they’re the right fit for us instead of focusing on their experience and skills.
The very essence of our partnership lies in building strong links between Smartrr and ELITEX team, which is working on the project. Expanding the collaboration from a few QA specialists to an entire development team has brought a holistic approach to development, significantly improving the final product. A shared vision of the teams empowered the core house crew to focus on strategic initiatives and business objectives, propelling the company toward its long-term goals.
The Result
Although Smartrr is a relatively young company, the success the team has achieved in a few years is astounding. Being one of the most promising subscription e-commerce apps on the market recently, Smartrr has already gained deserved recognition. And ELITEX is proud to be a part of the project's overall success.
Key facts and numbers:
- 5x company growth in under a year (from the client's own quote)
- 2 to 9 specialists scaled across the engagement
- 0 to a full QA function built from scratch
- Monolith split into 2 services for backend responsiveness
- Biweekly releases with rare unknown bugs
VP of Engineering at Smartrr
ELITEX’s involvement has been critical for the success of our company. They’ve helped us grow significantly, and we’ve increased our size by fivefold in less than a year.
As of today, the partnership between ELITEX and Smartrr is not over, and both parties have further plans to expand the collaboration. Despite achieving the initial goals and expectations, which sometimes were even exceeded, the Smartrr team still has plenty of ideas to be implemented in their platform, and, for its part, the ELITEX team is ready to do everything we can to ensure the future success of the ongoing collaboration.
Why Choose ELITEX?
- Versatile expertise. One ELITEX team covered QA, DevOps, and full-stack development for Smartrr, so the company scaled capacity without juggling multiple vendors.
- Cost-efficiency. You pay for the development capacity you need, with no bloated teams or management overhead inflating the bill.
- Cross-industry experience. Our work spans e-commerce, hospitality, real estate, publishing, fintech, and beyond, so we adapt to new domains fast and bring proven practices into each one.
- Flexible engagement model. The Smartrr team grew from two QA engineers to nine specialists as needs changed. We scale up or down on your schedule, not a fixed contract.
Let's talk about your project
Drop us a line! We would love to hear from you.
