Modernizing a public-sector work-study platform
Leading architecture and delivery improvements across two public-sector applications while reducing friction for users and maintainers.
Outcome: Dematerialization increased from 50% to 90%; key response paths improved by more than 98%.
Context
At Sopra Steria, I worked on a platform used by public employers to submit and manage work-study contracts. The engagement expanded from one Node.js and React application to architecture-level responsibility across a second Java and Angular system with a different data and deployment stack.
Responsibility
My role combined senior full-stack implementation, technical leadership, impact analysis, delivery planning, modernization, and team enablement. I was responsible for making changes safely across legacy dependencies while helping the team regain predictability and improve the experience for both users and support staff.
Constraints
- Modernize long-lived systems without interrupting public workflows.
- Coordinate changes across different frontend, backend, database, and hosting stacks.
- Balance priority delivery with accumulated maintenance and version upgrades.
- Keep infrastructure, documentation, and team practices aligned with application changes.
Approach
I used targeted impact studies before cross-application changes, simplified expensive data paths, introduced earlier filtering and indexing, and strengthened rendering behavior on the frontend. Modernization was staged across framework, runtime, database, and server versions instead of bundled into a single risky migration.
Alongside implementation, I documented installation and data operations, improved CI/CD and server configuration, and led demos, pair-programming sessions, and technical training so improvements were shared rather than concentrated in one role.
Outcomes
- Helped increase contract dematerialization from 50% in 2022 to 90% in 2024 while reducing bugs and support pressure.
- Reduced response time and transferred data by more than 98% on critical paths through indexing, query simplification, and early filtering.
- Expanded from the initial application to technical ownership across a second Java, Angular, PostgreSQL, and Elasticsearch system.
- Improved delivery and operational documentation across application, database, virtual-machine, and engineering workflows.
Reflection
Modernization works best as a sequence of measurable risk reductions. Performance fixes, version upgrades, delivery practices, and team knowledge were treated as one operating system rather than separate technical chores.