E-Learning
Platform
Modernization

Our client is a U.S. company that provides regulatory-compliant training and certification programs across various industries, including Environmental Health & Safety (EHS), Real Estate, Food & Beverage, and Financial Services. One of their primary offerings is an online education platform.

With over two decades of experience in the e-learning sector and millions of learners served, the platform features a robust Learning Management System (LMS), an e-commerce engine, and an extensive legacy course library.

Its mission is to empower individuals and organizations with scalable, digital-first training solutions that support licensing, compliance, and career development. The platform is recognized for its commitment to accessible education and its significant impact on workplace safety and professional growth throughout the country.

1. Scaling Teams and Modernizing the Platform

The client was undergoing a significant transformation initiative to modernize their legacy learning platform using modern technologies and Agile development practices. This effort was driven by several factors:

• Accumulated technical debt that made the company unable to support modern UX expectations or business logic like dynamic pricing, auto-renewal, regulatory compliance workflows, or third-party integrations.
• The company’s strategic expansion and acquisition of new brands, requiring a scalable, flexible, and future-ready architecture.

The goal was to replace legacy systems with a future-ready, performant, and extensible solution aligned with their expanding business needs.

As part of this transition, they greatly expanded their development capacity by launching multiple new Scrum teams and preparing to integrate recently acquired companies into their existing systems.

To support this growth, they needed to quickly onboard skilled professionals across various roles and disciplines. A key requirement wasn’t just fast hiring but also ensuring high-quality talent.

The client prioritized partnering with a vendor capable of sourcing strong candidates with technical expertise, particularly those experienced in modernization projects and scalable architecture. This need positioned Svitla as their preferred choice for staff augmentation.

2. Establishing Scalable Quality Assurance Processes

Alongside platform modernization, the client faced challenges due to fragmented and outdated quality assurance (QA) practices. Before Svitla’s involvement, the QA process faced challenges in terms of traceability, coverage, regression handling, and collaboration across teams.

QA processes were inconsistent with fragmented documentation, one-liners as test cases, and reliance on manual testing shared via corporate messenger.

Furthermore, the platform was rapidly evolving, introducing new functionalities without a structured validation strategy, which increased the risk of production defects and delays.

This approach was inadequate to support the fast-paced release cycles or to ensure product stability across different platforms.

The client’s business objective was to implement a modern, scalable QA process that would support agile development and enhance platform reliability. Key goals included:

• Creating a centralized repository for well-documented test cases
• Supporting functional coverage across mobile and desktop devices
• Ensuring cross-browser and responsive testing
• Integrating QA efforts with Jira or a similar system to enable real-time collaboration and visibility

Summing up, the business needs stemmed from existing legacy practices that hadn’t kept pace with the company’s growth. The shift to a user-focused, modern tech stack required a QA strategy that could match the evolving pace and complexity of development.

1. Full-Cycle Team for System Modernization

Our responsibilities extended beyond development to include shaping the technical foundation, establishing Agile workflows, and implementing best practices in solution architecture and DevOps. This collaborative approach enabled us to incrementally design, build, and deploy backend services, a fully decoupled front-end application, and scalable APIs that support the client’s long-term product roadmap.

The cooperation was structured as a long-term partnership, with a multi-year roadmap spanning nearly three years and growing in scope as the client expanded their project pipeline.

• Assembled a cross-functional team of project managers, business analysts, designers, QA engineers, front-end and back-end developers, and full-stack specialists to support the client’s transformation goals.
• Collaborated with department-specific managers from the client side to ensure alignment with business goals and technical direction.
• Focused on the modernization of three critical areas of the platform: the Learning Management System (LMS), the e-commerce module, and the Course Player. Together with the client’s team, we redesigned and rebuilt the existing monolithic architecture into a modular, microservices-based system, backed by cloud-native services. The new design is optimized for high availability, performance, and future extensibility across multiple brands and platforms.

The engagement began in the middle of 2024, and within the first year, multiple components were already released to internal environments for validation and integration. A public rollout of the new front-end is expected in mid-to-late 2025, with ongoing development and refinement continuing in parallel under a multi-year roadmap.

2. QA Process Overhaul and Integration

Svitla’s QA team was onboarded in August 2024 and immediately began with a deep-dive assessment of the client’s existing testing practices. The team identified key pain points, including inconsistent documentation, a lack of traceability, and manual execution that didn’t scale well with ongoing product development.

To address these challenges, the team delivered a comprehensive QA modernization strategy:

• Dual-format QA coverage: Introduced both lightweight test outlines for early-stage validations and fully documented test cases for complex scenarios.
• Centralized test repository: Migrated all test documentation and case management to BrowserStack Test Management Live, retiring outdated SharePoint-based processes.
• Cross-platform testing standards: Established formal test protocols for device/browser/resolution combinations, covering everything from iPhone and Android devices to tablets and desktop breakpoints.
• Reusable QA structures: Developed flexible test frameworks for new platform modules, enhancing efficiency and regression readiness.
• Agile QA alignment: Fully embedded the QA team into Agile workflows, participating in daily standups, sprint planning, and reviews, ensuring tight feedback loops with developers and product teams.

3. The LMS Solution Rehaul

• Developed a new Learning Management System (LMS) platform from the ground up, utilizing a modular architecture that supports scalability and high performance. Key features of the platform include account management, course delivery, scheduling, notifications, auto-renewal logic, regulatory workflows, and comprehensive commerce integration.
• Designed the system to replace the legacy platform while ensuring compatibility with existing data and users.
• Addressed the complexity of managing dual login systems, licensing rules, and payment processes across multiple states and regulatory bodies.

The solution evolved iteratively, with continuous refinement through sprint-based delivery and collaborative planning. The QA modernization efforts not only stabilized the quality of each release but also positioned QA as a strategic function in the client’s broader modernization effort.