Hygraph Talks: Building Resilient Tech Stacks

Earlier this week we caught up with Irena Reitz, a web developer from one of our partner agencies, Peerigon. We discussed resilient tech stacks and how they, as an agency, approach projects with the goal of building resilience into their projects.

Founded in Augsburg, Germany, Peerigon is a software development agency that prides itself on finding the balance between keeping up with the current trends in technologies, frameworks, and approaches and employing industry standards that will stand the test of time while still trying to consider the ecological footprint of the various technologies that they employ. Check out our conversation below:

Finding the balanceAnchor

Our conversation centered around how to build projects for clients that will stand the test of time and meet their needs. We started off the discussion by defining what exactly a resilient tech stack is. Irena emphasized that when it comes to building resilient tech stacks it is all about finding the balance. It is important to seek out cutting-edge technologies that offer new opportunities for speed and usability. On the flip side, it is critical that these services offer indicators of persistence. These can be strong community adoption and other metrics of growth.

“To keep the balance between cutting edge technology that is future proof but also ensuring that they are persistent enough to be around for a long time. A truly resilient tech stack is one that has as few moving parts in the front end as possible. Jamstack is one example. The tradeoffs are of course when you don’t have these parts in the frontend then they have to exist in the backend, which may lead to longer build times. You would need proper versioning of APIs and packages that are future proof. Static site generators and Headless CMS are perfect examples of tools to help this.” - Irena Reitz, Web Developer at Peerigon

We also discussed how teams can make sure that they are building these resilient tech stacks from the beginning of their project and that the more time invested during this crucial stage gives more room to build a tech stack that is resilient. In addition to thinking about the persistency of the technologies themselves, Irena mentioned that it is also crucial for people to consider the environmental impact of using various technologies. Teams should ask themselves how sustainable are the technologies that they implement, especially when the goal is to build a resilient tech stack.

Evaluating technologies for a resilient tech stackAnchor

We later took an in-depth look at how to evaluate various technologies for whether or not they would meet the needs of the client. When starting on a project where teams want to build a resilient tech stack, the first step is to understand what existing infrastructures are in place and evaluate what is not working or where can the new technologies be added to build the new project.

If the project is a greenfield project, it is important to make the high-level decisions first and then take a closer look at the specifics of the technologies and how they would work together. At this point, teams are evaluating how to build a solid foundation of the project using reliable tools and modern libraries. This is also the time to consider building strong code conventions and communication protocols. Tools like headless CMS and static site generators using the Jamstack are tools to bet on as they have a wide range of user adoption and a rich community.

The conversation covered both the high-level factors that determine how to build a resilient tech stack but also many of the detailed nuances that come from building a project’s tech stack. With every project having different needs and teams having different resources, the suggestions Irena makes can certainly get teams off on the right track when trying to get started building resilient tech stacks.

Thanks again to Irena for joining our Hygraph Talks! Check out the full conversation and feel free to let us know if you have any questions about what we discussed in the comments or on Twitter.