Transforming Native App & Engineering Teams with Flutter
Challenge
After years of mobile app development, Betterment’s mobile codebase was becoming difficult to manage and their native app teams’ velocity was starting to slow. Flutter was emerging as an appealing solution, but they wanted to ensure that they could replatform safely and efficiently with no interruption to their users. VGV helped Betterment pilot Flutter for their application, establish Flutter expertise and best practices, and train their engineering team on the new mobile framework.
Solution
Successful Flutter Pilot While Betterment was seriously considering Flutter, we had to demonstrate that the new code could be combined with the existing native code and still run smoothly. Our team helped Betterment build the first feature in Flutter — a flow for creating a user account — then successfully connected it to the native codebase using Flutter’s add-to-app. Meticulous Transformation Plan Instead of building their app from scratch in Flutter, Betterment came up with a plan to methodically migrate portions of the app into Flutter, while keeping the rest of the native app in place. We helped their team implement scalable best practices so that they could continue to port over features in Flutter, build new Flutter features, and ensure the longevity of their mobile app. Training for Large Teams We delivered formal training sessions with Super Declarative! to get Betterment's engineering team up to speed on Flutter. We facilitated group information sessions, breakout groups, and hands-on examples so that the team could learn how to build with Flutter, together. In just one week, Betterment’s engineers went from knowing little about Flutter to building features that are part of the app today.
Results
500,000+ Betterment Accounts 20+ Flutter Developers Trained $26b AUM Assets Under Management, as of 1/2021 Project Outcomes Roadmap to Flutter Transformation Switching an existing app to a completely new framework can feel daunting. VGV helped Betterment reduce productivity loss by working side-by-side with engineers to help them smoothly transition their native apps to Flutter without breaking their stride. Embedded Experts Our team was on-hand starting at the pilot of their first Flutter feature through the weeks after training to answer questions from Betterment’s engineering team and help them find solutions. Team Synchronicity Betterment’s Android and iOS teams are now closely aligned after Flutter training. The entire team now builds in one single codebase and moves forward together — allowing for better collaboration and productivity.
Want fresh marketing stories in your inbox?
Get the weekly email that makes you a marketing genius.
Stay informed and inspired, for free.