Magenta View CRM: from trainer to frontend architect, scaling 200+ developers
Deutsche Telekom · Magenta View CRM · 2021 – 2023
The Situation
Deutsche Telekom was replacing Oracle Siebel with a modern CRM platform, Magenta View. Thousands of call-center agents across European markets depended on this system daily. The new platform needed to support 200+ developers working in parallel across multiple country teams, each with their own regulatory requirements and market-specific features.
The Real Problem
I came in as a frontend trainer. The initial task was teaching HTML5, CSS3, Vue.js, and git workflows to the first wave of roughly 50 developers. But during the training, I started asking questions about the architecture and proposing directions to the Chief Architect. The deeper I got, the more I saw that the team didn't just need training. They needed architectural leadership.
With 200+ developers across multiple European markets, the core challenge wasn't the technology. It was governance. How do you let dozens of teams build independently without the platform fragmenting? How do you maintain consistency for thousands of end users while allowing country-specific customizations?
Key Decisions
- Elevated from trainer to one of two frontend architects to develop and steer the application direction. This gave me the authority to make cross-cutting decisions that affected all teams, not just the ones I was training.
- Introduced a pattern library as the single source of truth for UI components. This became the foundation that the UX team later built their design system on. Every team pulled from the same component set, which eliminated the visual inconsistency that creeps in when 200+ developers build things independently.
- Introduced a finite state machine approach for state retrieval. This brought predictability to how the application managed complex state transitions, making it possible for teams to reason about application behavior without understanding every other team's code.
- Designed a framework-agnostic microfrontend architecture that let teams choose their tools within well-defined constraints. The integration layer enabled independent deployments, so any team could ship at any time without coordinating with others.
Feature velocity increased by 30% as teams could develop and deploy independently. The pattern library became the shared language between engineering and design. The microfrontend governance patterns enabled true parallel development across European markets. The platform successfully replaced Oracle Siebel for thousands of call-center agents while maintaining a consistent user experience across all markets. Eventually, over 200 developers were working in parallel on the same platform.
The Exit
Two-year engagement from 2021 to 2023. The pattern library, state management approach, and architectural governance were documented and transitioned to Deutsche Telekom's internal architecture team. The patterns established during this engagement continued to guide the platform's evolution across new markets.
Facing something similar?
Every situation is different but the patterns repeat. If your team is stuck, your architecture is uncertain, or you're about to make a big technical bet, tell me what's going on.