Retail · DACH · Confidential · E-commerce
E-commerce scale-up: new platform plus embedded remote engineering team
How we combined a focused platform rebuild with a dedicated team model—ways of working, ownership, and metrics that matter for scale-ups.
Challenge
Replace a limiting legacy stack and grow engineering capacity without long local hiring cycles.
Outcome
New platform live in four months; ongoing capacity through a dedicated remote squad.
Rapid growth had outpaced the existing storefront and admin tooling. The client needed a modern commerce stack, better performance for SEO and conversion, and more engineering throughput—but Germany’s hiring market meant months-long delays for each role.
Scope and sequencing
We split work into a customer-facing storefront MVP and parallel tracks for catalogue, promotions, and integrations. Cutting scope for v1 was explicit: launch something merchants could sell on, then iterate on back-office efficiency.
Team model
A small Torq squad (full-stack and frontend-heavy) operated as an extension of the client’s product org: shared sprint cadence, shared Slack channels, and code ownership in the client’s repos. That reduced the “vendor wall” effect that kills velocity in many outsourcing setups.
Engineering practices
CI pipelines, preview environments, and feature flags reduced release risk. We documented API contracts with their ERP partner early to avoid integration thrash in the final month.
Results
- Production launch in approximately four months from kickoff for the defined MVP.
- Sustained velocity post-launch through the same embedded team—no re-onboarding cliff.
- Foundation for international expansion (localisation, payment methods) without another rewrite.