Gridky
40,000 properties, 12 tax regimes, banking-grade security. When the machine has to be reliable before it can be smart.
Gridky manages over 40,000 real estate properties across 12 tax regimes, with banking-grade security requirements. When I arrived, the rush to market had left significant technical debt.
Observability existed but was ignored: Slack exceptions had become background noise. The team had 10 production bugs per week. Bi-weekly deployments were stressful events.
The product needed to evolve: financial simulator, advanced search engine, OpenAPI standardization. But none of that was possible until the foundations were solid.
The problem
10 production bugs per week. Slack alerts had become background noise. Bi-weekly deployments were stressful events.
The team was chasing bugs instead of building the product. Tech debt accumulated during the rush to market was blocking all progress.
The setup
- Role
- Head of Engineering
- Duration
- 5 years
- Pace
- 5 days/week
- Team
- 6 senior developers + 2 Product Owners
The approach
I stopped pretending the crisis didn't exist. I personally took over bug reporting, spent 2 hours a day fixing them, and showed the team that quality was non-negotiable.
Then I rallied the team for a dedicated month-and-a-half sprint, the Drynuary. Zero new features. Nothing but stabilization, tests, and tech debt.
In parallel, I standardized APIs with OpenAPI, built the financial simulator, and set up an advanced search engine. I also optimized infrastructure to cut costs by 15%.
Team impact
Structured an 8-person team across 3 product verticals: Real Estate, SCPI, and Insurance. Established rituals, systematic code reviews, and upskilled senior developers.
Stack
Results
Production bugs
10 bugs/week → 1-2/month
Deploy frequency
Risky bi-weekly deploys → Multiple reliable releases/day
Test coverage
10% → 50% after the Drynuary → 85% afterward
Infrastructure costs
→ -15%
Yanis transformed the way we work. In 6 months, we went from chaos to a reliable machine.
Mathieu · CEO, Gridky
Business complexity demands engineering discipline. When you manage real people's investments across systems this complex, you cannot ignore the truth: you have to face it and act.
This mission also illustrates these topics.
Architecture & tech debt
Know what to keep, simplify and modernize.
Fintech & critical product
Make financial products safer without freezing growth.
Tech team & organization
Clarify roles, seniority and ownership.
SaaS & product growth
Structure product, team and SaaS architecture without losing pace.
Delivery & quality
Reduce friction between idea, engineering, QA and production.
Roadmap & tradeoffs
Connect product priorities, technical constraints and business goals.
Reliability & security
Make incidents, risks and critical dependencies visible.
Tech governance
Turn technical uncertainty into leadership decisions.