Company: UNOIT (later acquired by EG) · Scale: 2M+ Danish citizens, 250+ schools · Years: 2015 to 2019
Context
UNOIT built and ran education systems for municipalities, schools and institutions across Denmark. They covered everything from enrolment and grades to messages between parents, teachers and administrators. The users ranged from government officials to teachers to parents, and the systems had to stay up and keep the data safe.
What I did
I started as a developer on national systems covering the education of more than 2 million Danes, in Rails and AngularJS, and built integrations with Danish government systems. Pages had to stay fast under peak load, like enrolment periods.
Later I led the development of a platform for special high schools, from nothing to production. Then I drove around Denmark to demo it to schools and get them started. More than 250 schools ended up using it for scheduling, grading and attendance.
What I took from it
Systems that a whole country relies on need reliability and security before new features. Large Rails monoliths stay manageable if you respect the boundaries and test well. And the public sector gives you messy requirements that you have to turn into something simple.