Helping Vestmark deliver high-stakes financial software with confidence
- Client
Vestmark
- Services
Ruby on Rails, Mentoring
- Description
Helped Vestmark meet high-stakes executive deadlines by accelerating delivery, simplifying deployment workflows, and reducing long-term technical risk during a critical growth period.
50%
faster delivery times
92%
fewer deployment pipelines
0
net-new technical debt
Vestmark now operates with clearer architectural standards, faster iteration cycles, and a team that’s better equipped to make confident technical decisions under pressure.
Consolidating financial systems under delivery pressure
Vestmark’s software team was undertaking a significant shift: consolidating functionality from multiple applications and rebuilding a critical application as a Ruby on Rails monolith. While the organization had strong engineers, there was limited institutional experience with Rails, and meeting delivery timelines was crucial.
The team faced several pressures at once:
- A new technical direction without deep in-house Rails expertise
- Tight delivery timelines tied to executive expectations
- Risk of accumulating technical debt while moving quickly
- The need to upskill internal engineers while still shipping real product
thoughtbot didn’t just tell us how to do things, they showed us why you should do it. That’s what makes people adopt faster.
Hands-on engineering expertise for high-stakes financial software
Vestmark partnered with thoughtbot to bring in senior engineers who could work directly inside production systems while helping the team make high-quality technical and delivery decisions.
thoughtbot’s role went beyond advice. The team embedded alongside Vestmark engineers, leading by example, establishing Rails best practices, and helping the organization understand not just what to do, but why it mattered.
Building reliable financial systems while upskilling internal teams
Together, the teams:
- Consolidated services into a unified Rails application
- Established clear architectural patterns and testing practices
- Reduced deployment complexity by moving from twelve CI/CD pipelines to a single deploy
- Worked side-by-side through pairing, code reviews, and shared ownership
- Balanced near-term deadlines with long-term maintainability
Establishing durable foundations for platform growth
Beyond hitting deadlines, the work set a durable foundation. Vestmark now operates with clearer architectural standards, faster iteration cycles, and a team that’s better equipped to make confident technical decisions under pressure. This foundation enables Vestmark to continue delivering reliable, high-quality software to the financial institutions and advisors they serve.
They were excellent engineers who knew how to fix problems and deliver solutions.