Chapter 12. uSwitch
uSwitch.com is one of the busiest UK websites. The website compares prices and services for a variety of companies and products, including energy suppliers, credit cards, and insurance providers. The complexity of their software system is driven by high scalability as well as complex integrations with a large number of external partners.
uSwitch is an interesting case study because it illustrates how a company working in a Waterfall process with separate development and testing teams on a problematic legacy environment can still transition to a much better way of delivering quality software. uSwitch has completely overhauled their software delivery process over the course of three years.
At uSwitch, I interviewed Stephen Lloyd, Tony To, Damon Morgan, Jon Neale, and Hemal Kuntawala. When I asked them about their software process, their general answer was, “Someone suggests an idea in the morning and then it gets implemented and goes live.” Early in my career, I worked for a company with a software process that could be described the same way—and that experienced fireworks on the production systems almost daily. But in the case of uSwitch, the quality of the product and the speed with which they deliver features is enviable.