Modernising Legacy Platforms: Enabling Scalable Growth Through Platform Engineering
Digital transformation is no longer a luxury; it’s essential for survival and growth. Yet many businesses remain encumbered by legacy technology that limits innovation, slows down development, and inflates operational costs.
At Vertex Agility, we specialise in modernising these outdated systems, enabling organisations to scale efficiently and deliver better experiences to their customers and partners.
From Monolith to Marketplace: A Real-World Transformation
One of our most significant recent engagements involved helping a leading UK service marketplace transition from a fragmented, legacy architecture to a modern, fully integrated, end-to-end digital platform. The transformation aimed to support their long-term vision of becoming a seamless marketplace, serving three primary user personas: Consumers, Traders, and Agents.
This wasn't just a facelift. It was a deep, structural overhaul that included modern architecture principles, platform engineering, and the introduction of an Internal Developer Platform (IDP). Our role was to lead the engineering execution of this transformation as a managed capacity provider, supplying experienced cross-functional teams and architectural leadership.
Our Technical Approach
Our modernisation strategy was delivered through a structured “5P” Model, targeting the following domains:
1. Platform Engineering
We built and maintained the core platform infrastructure, focusing on scalability, fault-tolerance, and future extensibility. This platform served as the backbone for the new marketplace, supporting API-first communication and modular service integration.
2. Product Engineering
Vertex was directly responsible for designing and developing a suite of new Marketplace Services, using the IDP to accelerate development. These services were decoupled, cloud-native, and seamlessly integrated into the broader platform using RESTful APIs.
3. Persona-Based Applications
We delivered tailored applications for different user personas (Consumers, Traders, Agents), each fronted by a dedicated Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) layer. This approach optimised performance, improved developer autonomy, and simplified user-specific logic.
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4. Vendor-Agnostic Integration
To ensure long-term flexibility, we developed abstraction layers over third-party APIs, enabling the business to switch external providers without impacting core functionality. This avoided vendor lock-in and future-proofed the architecture.
5. Self-Service & Ecosystem Participation
We built a self-service developer portal for external partners, allowing them to integrate directly with the platform via exposed APIs. This created an “architecture of participation” that encouraged ecosystem growth and simplified onboarding.
Developer Productivity & Agile Execution
One of the standout outcomes was the creation of an Internal Developer Platform that introduced reusable templates, golden paths, and standardised pipelines. This led to an estimated 20% improvement in developer productivity, reducing time-to-market for new features and services.
All work was delivered within a tightly managed agile scrum framework, with Vertex providing end-to-end project management—including a dedicated Project Manager and Customer Success Manager. While product strategy remained with the client, we ensured smooth execution with rapid iteration and continuous delivery.
We also provided two senior Software Architects to lead the transformation effort, ensuring architectural coherence, best practices, and alignment with the client’s technical vision.
Seamless Transition to BAU
Post-transformation, our role evolved into ongoing Business-As-Usual (BAU) support. To optimise operational costs without compromising quality, we transitioned support and development to a nearshore EU-based team, maintaining continuity and service excellence.
Your Modernisation Partner
This engagement is a powerful example of how Vertex Agility helps customers modernise legacy software into resilient, scalable, and future-ready platforms. Whether it’s platform engineering, full-stack development, cloud-native architecture, or DevOps enablement, we bring the experience and capability to de-risk complex transformations.