PropertyGuru’s Tech Radar — Where We Keep Track of Tech
Published in
3 min readOct 5, 2022
The PG Tech Radar is a curated collection of technology items that make up the tech landscape of PropertyGuru. This gives us perspective on the things we are currently valuing, how we’re actively updating them, and how we keep an eye on the future.
It is an authoritative instrument for techies and non-techies to align decisions on:
- Uses and avoidances in their products or systems
- Removing or replacing outdated technology.
What is the Purpose of Tech Radar?
The PG Tech Radar helps us:
- Visualize — Integrated view of our organization’s technologies, platforms, and techniques.
- Explore — A space to discuss emerging technologies and approaches which are relevant to PG and should be explored.
- Decide — Enhance our ability to make informed decisions by streamlining the technologies and choices available.
- Retire — Reducing the cost of sprawl by retiring outdated technologies.
As a result, we can
- Avoid Surprises — Allow developers to move between teams as priorities change.
- Early Productivity — Deliver value earlier by reducing training and onboarding time.
- Build Smart — Identify opportunities for PG-wide solutions earlier, reducing the waste incurred by solving the problem in multiple places.
- Refresh Tech — Spend less on technology refreshes over time and avoid expensive, risky legacy transformation projects.
Anatomy
Our radar has four rings and three groups (quadrants).
Groups
In groups, similar technologies are grouped together logically. Choosing the quadrant is very important and will help us determine how to use it.
- Techniques & Processes— Approaches, and patterns for building and running systems. e.g., Sidecar pattern, Server-Side Rendering, Event Sourcing, etc.
- Tools & Platform Services — Cloud providers, third-party software, and end-to-end services. e.g., Datadog, Salesforce, Braze, etc.
- Languages & Frameworks— Development, delivery, and operations. e.g., Terraform CDK, ReactJS, Symfony, etc.
Rings
- Consult Ring — Major technologies being adopted by parts of PG, but which we don’t want to adopt by default without broader consultation.
- Adopt Ring — Technology that is considered PG’s default. Our team has agreed these are good choices and that we have the resources and skills to achieve excellence.
- Experiment Ring — The experiment ring contains technologies we are actively exploring, by building something. We have not committed to this technology, and if it fails, we will remove it. For PG-wide technology choices, this technology will be part of experiments under the IPR/Theorem process. This includes technologies that we see may become relevant to PG in the future, either as a replacement for current technology or to solve a new problem. PG staff should invest some effort (such as development spikes, research projects, attending conference sessions, etc.) to be familiar with these technologies. If no team runs experiments to inform whether to adopt the technology it disappears from the Radar.
- Hold Ring — The hold ring says “don’t start anything new with this technology”. Systems and technologies must still be maintained, supported, and patched adequately, but you should not be using this technology to build something brand new from the ground up. Generally, items will move from Hold to Retire over time.
- Retire Ring — The retire ring is for technologies that are under active or funded retirement. You should definitely not be using this technology for any new development.
Blips
Blips are the items on the radar. They have:
- Name — A title most people know it by.
- Blurb — A description of why we believe it’s a good idea to have it in the ring it sits in as well as links to supporting documentation or materials for further reading.
- Curator — PG team or person that wrote the Blip and cares about it. The guild that is most closely aligned to the Blip.
