AppDirect: “Unblocked has been a game-changer for efficiency and focus.”

October 9, 2024

You’ve probably gotten an offer from a service you subscribe to, such as a mobile network, to add services from other companies like cloud storage or streaming TV to your account. There’s a good chance that this add-on is offered, serviced, and managed through AppDirect, a platform that provides both the technology and the business support for a large catalog of digital subscriptions.

Clients and end users alike benefit from a streamlined approach to billing and support. Creating such a frictionless service, however, involves a whole lot of complexity on the back end. With all the APIs, business relationships, customizations, and other aspects of running a marketplace, the life of an engineer at AppDirect involves quickly figuring out and working with a wide variety of codebases and their respective documentation.

Overseeing a global team of 250 engineers across six countries, Mathew Spolin, the SVP of Engineering at AppDirect, set out to make his developers’ workflow more efficient. “Our focus this year has been on scaling our platform’s performance, improving reliability, and enhancing the developer experience,” says Mathew. For that last point, fixing the problem of fragmented documentation was a top concern, and why Mathew turned to Unblocked for help.

Before: Scattered knowledge and time-consuming searches

Like their counterparts at many rapidly growing engineering teams, AppDirect’s developers were spending too much time searching for the information they needed to complete their tasks. Critical details were scattered across wikis, StackOverflow for Teams, Slack conversations, and email, leading to bottlenecks in development workflows and distractions for the people being interrupted for pointers. “Our platform is complex, and developers were frequently context-switching,” Mathew explains. “Often, they had to wait for responses from subject matter experts on other engineering teams in different regions, creating bottlenecks, especially for resolving technical blockers.”

Mathew recalls an incident when a developer working on a critical feature update needed information about an API that hadn’t been used in months. “They spent hours searching through outdated documentation and waiting for clarification from team members, delaying the entire sprint,” he says. Such delays impact not only productivity but also team morale. Engineers want to fix and build things, not scour for answers to factual questions.

“The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Developers appreciate how quickly they can access information without needing to wait for responses. “It’s been described as a game-changer for efficiency and focus.”

Mathew Spolin, SVP of Engineering at AppDirect

After: Centralized knowledge-as-a-service

Unblocked immediately met the requirement to tie together knowledge dispersed across several internal platforms, thanks to straightforward integrations. It also went a step beyond the requirements with dev-focused tooling like in-IDE contextual knowledge and listening in on Slack conversations to offer answers when appropriate.

Now, Unblocked serves as the team’s internal knowledge hub, easily accessible through their existing workflows. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Developers appreciate how quickly they can access information without needing to wait for responses,” says Mathew. “It’s been described as a game-changer for efficiency and focus.”

Beyond improving day-to-day productivity, Unblocked has helped AppDirect accelerate sprint velocity and hit deadlines with fewer last-minute issues. “We’ve seen a tangible reduction in time spent on resolving technical blockers and answering repetitive questions,” Mathew notes. This shift has allowed the team to focus more on delivering innovative features and improving their platform’s reliability, all while increasing developer satisfaction.

An unexpected benefit of using Unblocked has been its impact on cross-functional teams. For example, AppDirect’s support team found Unblocked so helpful that they wanted direct access to it. “Now, they log into Unblocked and confirm from the reference sources,” Mathew observes. Customers get answers faster, and devs endure fewer questions from the support team.

Unblocked is “worth piloting”

Now that Unblocked is a standard part of his team’s workflow, Mathew is confident that “it’s more than justified the investment. The reduction in wasted time and the increase in developer focus have helped us build a more efficient, empowered team. That translates directly into better business outcomes.”

For other teams considering Unblocked, Mathew has simple advice: “If you’re spending too much time chasing down information or waiting on answers, Unblocked can drastically streamline those workflows. It’s worth piloting in a small team to see the immediate impact.”

With Unblocked, AppDirect has made developers both happier and more productive by reducing the time and hassle of finding the information they need to build and maintain code. They’re more free to focus on the more fulfilling part of the job: building and scaling the platform their customers depend on. Take a peek at the docs to see just how much Unblocked can do.

Get in touch with us today to see how you can get the same results, and more, with your team.