App Architecture & API Latency Optimization
Architected a client-side product and optimized API workflows to support 1-to-10 scaling, reducing maintenance costs by 10% and accelerating releases by 3x.
App Architecture & API Latency Optimization
To C / iGaming · Project Leader (Acting Product Lead)
Situation
After successfully leading the team through the 0-to-1 startup phase, the product entered its 1-to-10 expansion stage, where we encountered severe scaling challenges. Operations frequently relied on engineering assistance to update homepage promotional assets, creating delivery bottlenecks. Simultaneously, the legacy sports API polling mechanism caused odds update delays on the UI. Although odds were accurately corrected upon order creation, this visual discrepancy severely impacted the end-user's betting experience.
Task
Architect a self-serve client product to free up engineering resources, and overhaul the sports API data layer to eliminate UI latency.
Roles & Deliverables
Data-Driven Discovery: Analyzed client-side telemetry and API request logs, uncovering a legacy architecture relying on direct client-side polling. This caused redundant requests during traffic spikes, leading to UI odds latency and server resource strain.
Scalable Client Architecture: To resolve the promotional asset bottleneck, I avoided rebuilding from scratch and instead repurposed existing backend management capabilities, adjusting frontend logic to enable dynamic homepage banner configuration without engineering support.
API Proxy & Optimization: Led integration of third-party sports APIs to replace inefficient direct polling. Introduced a caching layer, eliminating UI odds inconsistencies and improving display accuracy.
Migration Trade-off: To accelerate delivery, I deprecated legacy support and guided early clients through migration, which proved more cost-effective than maintaining dual API architectures and accumulating technical debt.
Result
Operational Leverage: Transformed a labor-intensive operational bottleneck into a scalable, self-serve product feature.
Technical Foundation: Established a robust architectural foundation that significantly elevated the brand's technical credibility during its scaling phase.
Impact
Accelerated Release Cycle: Sped up release preparation by over 3x, transforming a 3-day manual engineering task into an instant, dynamic backend update.
Cost Optimization: Reduced ongoing system maintenance costs by 10% through frontend-only adjustments and legacy deprecation.
Latency Eradication: Slashed P95 API latency by 600ms, entirely eliminating the UI odds update delay.
Details