Building Scalable iGaming Platforms Without Sacrificing Innovation
His approach combines battle-tested architecture principles with pragmatic decision-making. The result transforms potential disasters into seamless player experiences.
Preparing for Massive Traffic Surges
Platform performance during major sporting events isn’t just about having bigger servers. It requires strategic architectural decisions and careful capacity planning.
“Some of it is how you approach the architecture of the platform, how you offload read traffic,”
Michael Jack
His team moves traffic to edge nodes and content delivery networks, positioning resources closer to players.
The foundation lies in stateless services that scale linearly. This architecture supports active-active configurations, ensuring rapid spikes don’t overwhelm the system. Performance testing ahead of events becomes crucial for identifying potential bottlenecks.
Experience plays a vital role. Teams learn from past incidents, applying those lessons to prevent future problems.
Pragmatism Over Perfection in Platform Architecture
Building scalable platforms requires balancing multiple competing priorities. Time to market pressures clash with architectural purity, whilst cost considerations influence every decision.
“The key is pragmatism. Not being absolute purists and attempting to build the Sistine Chapel, but making sensible, pragmatic decisions.”
Michael Jack
This philosophy balances scalability requirements with business realities. Features must reach market quickly whilst maintaining quality standards. Total cost of ownership affects both SportingTech and their operator clients.
The approach prevents over-engineering whilst ensuring platforms can handle future growth.
Innovating While Maintaining Stability
Simultaneous innovation and stability seems contradictory, but the right team mindset makes it achievable. Engineers must think beyond current requirements, designing features for massive scale from the start.
“When features and functionality are designed, you have to design them in mind of this may well scale to hundreds of thousands of people of concurrent use.”
Michael Jack
Team education plays a crucial role. Both formal training and internal knowledge sharing create engineers who naturally consider scalability implications. Features launch ready for growth rather than requiring emergency patches.
This approach mirrors successful companies like OpenAI, which scaled to 700 million users whilst continuously innovating.
Managing Distributed Engineering Teams
Coordinating teams across Bulgaria, Brazil, and other markets requires intentional strategies. Small, geographically grouped teams work locally whilst maintaining global connectivity.
Conference technology enables constant collaboration. Teams stay connected through always-on monitors, creating virtual presence across time zones. However, technology alone isn’t sufficient.
“I do prefer a hybrid approach to working. I think a lot can be done remotely, but I don’t think there’s any substitute for a real bit of human interaction.”
Michael Jack
Quarterly face-to-face gatherings build social capital. These sessions might involve working from hotel conference rooms, but they accelerate problem-solving and relationship building. Personal connections improve collaboration quality significantly.
Empowering Engineers to Drive Platform Evolution
Traditional hierarchies can stifle innovation, but SportingTech takes a different approach. Every engineer, regardless of seniority level, receives objectives for identifying proactive improvements.
These improvements focus on making colleagues’ lives easier. Examples include faster test suites, improved debugging tools, or streamlined processes. The scale varies by seniority, but the expectation remains universal.
“Everyone is expected to contribute proactive changes.”
Michael Jack
This system ensures continuous platform evolution driven by those closest to the code.
Promotion decisions consider proactive contributions alongside technical skills. Engineers who exceed improvement targets whilst helping other teams gain recognition during advancement opportunities.
Selecting the Right Technology Partners
Partner selection involves comprehensive due diligence beyond basic functionality checks. SportingTech evaluates compliance requirements, information security implications, and operational complexity.
Architecture analysis identifies potential single points of failure. The team assesses whether third-party platforms might create bottlenecks affecting operator performance.
“The risk of not getting that right means the upfront investment and time is well worth it.”
Michael Jack
Thorough evaluation prevents future operational headaches.
Operators hold SportingTech accountable for partner performance. This responsibility makes careful selection crucial for maintaining client relationships.
Building for the Future
Successful iGaming platforms require more than technical excellence. They demand pragmatic leadership, empowered teams, and strategic thinking about scalability from day one.
Jack’s approach proves that innovation and stability aren’t mutually exclusive. The right team culture, supported by smart architectural decisions, creates platforms ready for explosive growth whilst continuously evolving.
About the Guest
Michael Jack is CTO of SportingTech, where he leads platform innovation and engineering teams across multiple international markets. With extensive experience scaling iGaming technology solutions, he specialises in building resilient architectures that support rapid business growth whilst maintaining operational excellence.
