Overview
A prominent digital media platform catering to Millennials and Gen Z was growing rapidly, but its engineering team wasn't keeping pace. The team was excellent at shipping features on request, but struggled to evolve into strategic innovators capable of leading product and technology transformation. To shift gears from reactive to proactive development, they brought in Hyperjump to support the transformation with a structured, hands-on approach.
The Challenge
- Despite having a solid work ethic and collaborative company culture, the engineering team functioned more like an internal agency. Handling feature requests from business units with minimal structure or tracking
- No task management or ticketing systems
- Feature requests often went directly to individual developers
- Lack of metrics to measure performance or progress
- No agile ceremonies or standardized development processes
- As product demand surged, the business needed more than execution. They needed innovation
Our Approach
With a dedicated CTO-as-a-Service engagement, Hyperjump introduced a series of foundational improvements designed to help the team scale sustainably.
Agile Overhaul
- Introduced proper Scrum ceremonies, including Sprint Planning, Grooming, Retrospectives, and Daily Standups
- Defined a clear Definition of Done (DoD) and taught teams to write better user stories. Bridging the communication gap between product, design, and development
- Tracked team velocity to create predictable, measurable delivery cycles
CI/CD Transformation
- Established automated CI/CD pipelines, removing manual deployment work from engineers
- Enforced unit test coverage, improving internal code quality and catching issues early
- Developers could now focus on innovation, not infrastructure
Quality Assurance Reinforcement
- Reorganized the QA team into a structured, cross-functional unit
- Testing became a mandatory release step, with better knowledge sharing and coverage planning
KPI-Driven Growth
- Developed clear internal quality metrics (defects caught during QA, unit test coverage) to improve maintainability and reduce tech debt
- Tracked external quality metrics (production defects) to ensure faster issue resolution and service reliability
- Teams gained visibility into their strengths and growth areas
Centralized Feedback Handling
- Set up a proper service desk system to collect bug reports and feedback from business units
- Ensured each issue was tracked, triaged, and resolved with clear preventive documentation
Key Learnings
- From Order-Takers to Innovators: Shifting an engineering team from reactive development to proactive innovation requires structural, cultural, and process-level changes, not just more resources
- Agile Foundations Enable Predictability: Introducing Scrum ceremonies and a Definition of Done created clarity, accountability, and a shared rhythm that improved delivery consistency and cross-team communication
- CI/CD Frees Developers to Focus on Value: Automating deployments and enforcing test coverage allowed engineers to spend more time innovating rather than maintaining infrastructure
- Quality Must Be Systematized: Embedding QA into the development cycle and using cross-functional QA teams improved test coverage, reduced defects, and accelerated feedback loops
- Data-Driven Teams Grow Faster: By introducing KPIs and tracking both internal and external quality metrics, teams gained visibility into performance gaps and made informed decisions for continuous improvement
- Structured Feedback Loops Build Trust: Centralizing issue intake and resolution fostered stronger alignment with business units and ensured nothing fell through the cracks
- Cultural Transformation is Hands-On: Coaching, real-time collaboration, and continuous support were crucial in building not just process maturity, but a mindset shift toward engineering excellence and ownership
Results
After 6 months of close collaboration and coaching:
They've laid the foundation for engineering excellence. Now, they're ready to build the future.