Private Community Engagement Platform Modernization

What started as a request to improve backend performance turned into a long-term partnership driving the full product lifecycle of a fast-growing private community platform. The client, a growing SaaS provider in the U.S. wellness-tech space, had seen strong user traction with their mobile-first MVP but faced challenges scaling across iOS, Android, and web. Their platform, which enables users to host private groups, courses, and gamified challenges, was running into limits — slow page loads, unscalable content feeds, and growing tech debt.

Devox Software joined as a full-stack delivery partner. In close collaboration with the client’s founder and head of product, we rebuilt key backend workflows in C# and ASP.NET Core, stabilized the Vue.js 2-based admin panel, and assumed responsibility for the Flutter mobile app. Over 18 months, we helped grow the platform into a stable, feature-rich product used by thousands of yoga instructors, wellness coaches, and online communities — delivering new functionality while keeping the release pipeline clean, the UX responsive, and cloud costs predictable.

• Solution Architect (SaaS architecture & performance scaling)
• 2 Full-Stack Engineers (C# / ASP.NET Core, Vue.js 2)
• Flutter Mobile Engineer (iOS & Android)
• QA Automation Engineer
• DevOps Engineer (AWS services, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code)
• Project Manager

• Siloed architecture left over from the MVP days. The initial no-code MVP evolved into a patchwork of tools — Firebase auth, third-party LMS platforms, a PHP backend, and a React frontend — resulting in a brittle foundation that could no longer support real-time interaction or mobile-first use cases.
• Incomplete mobile parity. Core engagement actions, such as lesson tracking, journaling threads, or challenge participation, were only accessible on desktop. We introduced Flutter and synced it with existing APIs, all without disrupting daily use or duplicating business logic.
• Gamification complexity. The point system, badges, and leaderboards had been implemented inconsistently by multiple teams. Inconsistent logic across modules made troubleshooting difficult.
• Real-time sync issues across devices. Thousands of concurrent users across wellness programs, coaching courses, and live events created sync issues between devices. The platform required a new WebSocket layer, local state management, and queueing to ensure a smooth experience across sessions.
• Course state conflicts. Inconsistent tracking led to broken progress logic, where users could get locked out of modules or trigger premature completions. A full rewrite of client-server validation was needed to ensure progression logic was consistent across platforms.
• Multitenancy strain. Each client — coaches, yoga instructors, group leaders — required isolated spaces with custom branding, while still sharing global infrastructure. A tenant-aware permissions model and theme engine had to be built from scratch.
• Legacy data volatility. Several years of unstructured course data, overlapping group roles, and historical engagement logs meant any schema change risked breaking the UI. The team built migration scripts that were traceable, reversible, and could run safely in production with zero downtime.

• Backend: C# / ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, RabbitMQ
• Frontend (Admin): Vue.js 2
• Mobile App: Flutter + Dart
• Real-time: SignalR, Redis
• Database: PostgreSQL
• DevOps & CI/CD: Docker, AWS ECS, GitHub Actions, Terraform, AWS Secrets Manager
• Observability: OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch
• Notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging, custom email/SMS queues

• Incremental backend modernization, one service at a time. Our team inherited a legacy ASP.NET Core monolith with deeply entangled logic across courses, notifications, and gamification. Instead of refactoring blindly, we introduced a layered modular design, extracting key domains (auth, engagement, delivery) into service boundaries while keeping velocity high on product features.
• Connecting Vue.js and Flutter through decoupled delivery flows. The legacy Vue.js 2 admin panel and the Flutter client remained separately deployed, each with its release flow. We synced behavior through shared contracts and custom serialization, achieving UI parity without merging stacks.
• Engagement engine from scratch. The gamification layer — points, streaks, leaderboards — was built as a standalone service, hooked to an internal event bus that listened to every click, watch, and scroll. We designed it to support both immediate rewards (e.g., “complete a lesson”) and time-gated triggers (“daily check-in challenge”).
• Devotional delivery and content orchestration. We created a lightweight CMS inside the app. Coaches could now mix media (text, audio, video), schedule content drops, and track progress — all without re-deploying the app. Content blocks were stored in markdown + JSON, parsed client-side, and rendered natively in Flutter.
• Direct-to-user messaging queues. We built our own push, SMS, and email delivery queues, integrating with Twilio, Firebase Messaging, and AWS SES, complete with retries, throttling, and per-user preferences. Every message is traceable and bypasses third-party algorithms entirely.
• AWS-based CI/CD and observability. We deployed Dockerized microservices to ECS with full CI/CD via GitHub Actions, set up secret rotation with AWS Secrets Manager, and introduced tracing (via OpenTelemetry) across API, worker queues, and the gamification layer. Load tests showed sub-200-ms response times under concurrent spikes.

BUSINESS OUTCOMES

• Community chatter all week, not just launch day. With a swipe-ready mobile feed and push reminders, mid-week wellness check-ins and yoga sessions now spark comment threads that keep rolling long after the live event ends.
• Course completion rates rose significantly thanks to clear module locking, streak mechanics, and seamless cross-device tracking. Coaches see a steady flow of “completed” badges instead of the old drop-off after Week 2.
• Stickier memberships, calmer support. Gamified points and leaderboards give members a reason to log in daily, while a unified rules engine eliminates “why didn’t I get credit?” support tickets.
• One afternoon onboarding. New yoga instructors, coaches, and community leaders spin up branded spaces — logo, colors, payment link, starter content — in a single guided wizard, turning “let’s try this” into “we’re live” before the weekend class.

TECHNICAL OUTCOMES

• Seamless releases. Nine blue-green deployments shipped during peak usage without a single dropped session.
• Real-time sync. WebSocket streams and Redis queues keep engagement stats, chats, and streak counters in sync — even when hundreds of users join simultaneously.
• Cost-aware scalability. Auto-scaling containers flex for weekend challenges and idle overnight. Latency remains under 200 ms with optimized compute usage.
• Traceable data history. Every progress step, post, and badge now has a clean audit trail — helping both business metrics and future debugging.