In 2016, I was asked to help Ricardo. Things were in bad shape - the company was stuck and releases were infrequent. Some of the KPIs were on a downward trend, and the inventory quality wasn't as good as it was years earlier. The platform was running in old data centers with outdated hardware, and much of the code was 10 years old or more. A lot of engineers had left at in the previous months. After assessing the situation, I was soon air-dropped in as CTO, and kicked off a total reboot of engineering.
In the first two years, we jump-started a new container-based platform, re-trained engineers, switched from older .NET apps to JS, Node and Golang within an event-oriented architecture. We migrated all services to Google Cloud, and shut down two data centers. There was a lot of technical debt and product issues to work through, and together with the rest of the company, we developed a new agile planning and work process - you can read more about it in this great post from one of the product managers at Ricardo.
Today, Ricardo is running on a modern platform, with new native apps, easy payment and delivery features, and teams deploy improvements every day. The culture is positive, the customers are happy, and the revenue and market share are growing strong. I'm proud to have been part of this story, and remain a huge fan of Ricardo.
In the fall of 2020, I was moved up to TX Markets as CTO, and together with a small team, where we supported engineering topics across all the marketplace companies including Tutti, Homegate and CarForYou. In 2022, all of TX Markets was merged into SMG - Swiss Marketplace Group.
I learned a lot at Ricardo, and I am thankful to the employees, my engineering heads, and a fantastic management team who helped me learn and grow. We experienced such an amazing journey together.
I continue to buy and sell way too many things on Ricardo. It's filled with great finds, easy to use, and environmentally responsible. You should use it, too!
