Testing culture drives developer happiness and innovation at GrowthTribe

GrowthTribe aims to empower learners with the essential skills needed to adapt, evolve, and succeed in a rapidly changing digital world. With a community of 35,000 professionals and a partnership network of over 1,000 businesses, GrowthTribe is committed to helping individuals, entrepreneurs, and organizations stay ahead of the curve in the fast-paced digital landscape. 

Chetan Patil, Engineering Manager at GrowthTribe, has been a long-time user of Sentry and Codecov. His journey with these tools began during his tenure at Nokia, where he was introduced to Sentry. However, his relationship with Codecov really took off when he joined GrowthTribe, where it was an integral part of cultivating a testing culture within Chetan’s team.

Building a digital learning platform from the ground up

At GrowthTribe, Chetan built the company’s digital learning platform from scratch. As a strong advocate of test-driven development (TDD), he recognized the importance of maintaining high code quality and coverage, especially in a fully remote setup with teams across The Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, India, Ukraine, and France. 

Chetan‘s team employed a fairly standard development practice, using Ruby on Rails for the backend and React.js for the frontend. From the beginning, he emphasized the importance of writing good tests and maintaining high code coverage. However, managing and enforcing these practices across a distributed team could be a challenge. This is where Codecov came into play. 

Cultivating a testing culture

According to Chetan, “As an Engineering Lead and Manager, I have seen firsthand the transformative power of a strong testing culture. With Codecov and a strong testing culture GrowthTribe reduced bugs being introduced into production by roughly 94%, going from several issues a day to 1-2 per sprint. Over a series of updates to our systems and testing culture we got to a point where we almost forgot about bugs in production. This wasn’t just a technical achievement; it was a result of careful cultural cultivation.”

Codecov’s seamless integration with GitHub and the ability to automate test coverage reports were game-changers for GrowthTribe. Chetan appreciated how Codecov made it easy for his team to stay on top of their code quality without the need for micromanagement. By setting up automated status checks in GitHub Actions, the team could instantly see if a pull request reduced code coverage, prompting immediate action to address the issue. 

“​​From day one, we integrated Codecov into our CI (continuous integration) pipeline. But more importantly, we instilled a mindset where writing tests became second nature. It wasn’t about adhering to rules; it became a habit and a part of our professional DNA. Our team couldn’t imagine working any other way.”

Testing culture results in happy, efficient engineers

One of the key benefits Chetan observed was the cultural shift within his team. Codecov helped instill a strong testing culture where developers were naturally inclined to write comprehensive tests. The tool’s visual indicators and CI pipeline integration ensured that testing became an integral part of the development process rather than an afterthought. 

Adding Chetan, “We nurtured a culture where testing is valued. It wasn’t mandated; it was embraced.”

As the team embraced this cultural shift, their productivity notably increased. Additionally, the integration of Codecov significantly reduced the number of bugs reaching production, allowing the team to shift focus from urgent fixes to developing new, innovative features. Previously, with their legacy system, they encountered several issues daily. After implementing the new system with Codecov, the frequency of issues dropped to just a few per week, and over time, only one to two requests per sprint, primarily focused on improvements rather than bugs. 

By leveraging Codecov, the QA team gained greater confidence in the stability of the codebase and could focus more on validating business logic and requirements rather than just finding bugs. 

Additionally, when the engineers recognized the direct link between high test coverage and having more time to work on projects they were passionate about, the change became irreversible. Their satisfaction and commitment to testing were evident in their high code coverage rates. 

Even independent auditors were impressed with the team’s ability to maintain exceptionally high standards—an uncommon achievement in the industry. For instance, Growthtribe voluntarily underwent a third-party technical audit to meet compliance requirements like GDPR and investor due diligence. They evaluated the code based on key criteria, including Best Practices, Risk, Maintainability, Scalability, and Security. Growthtribe achieved an overall coverage score of 90%, significantly higher than the industry average of 60%. Although extensive test coverage wasn’t necessary for the audit, Chetan and the team at Growthtribe believe this rigorous practice contributed to the positive audit outcome. 

Chetan added, “High test coverage alone doesn’t equate to quality. The quality of the tests is equally important, and that’s something I hope to see from Codecov in the future—more insights and scoring of test quality within the project.”

Again, Chetan said, “Writing tests wasn’t just a task; it was a source of pride and a measure of our craftsmanship.”

Codecov and Sentry: partners in improving application quality

Chetan also noted how Codecov complemented Sentry in providing a holistic view of the code’s health. While Sentry handled application performance monitoring and error monitoring, Codecov filled in the coverage gaps by ensuring the codebase was thoroughly tested. This combination allowed GrowthTribe to maintain a high level of observability and reliability in its digital learning platform. 

Looking to the future, Chetan is excited about new features in Codecov, such as test analytics, which will provide deeper insights into test performance and reliability, ensuring quality alongside coverage. These enhancements promise to further optimize the team’s workflow, reducing CI pipeline times and identifying flaky tests before they become bottlenecks. 

Again, Chetan, “We ship quality, stable features with virtually no bug reports. Our QA workload has been greatly reduced.”

Codecov has been instrumental in helping GrowthTribe build a resilient, test-driven development culture. By automating and streamlining the testing process, Codecov has empowered Chetan’s team to deliver high-quality software faster and more confidently.

All in all, Growthtribe saw a significant boost in both software delivery speed and developer satisfaction. In the past, they would encounter a bug that would cost them one to two days of development time or one that could be fixed with a simple one-line change—yet both issues could have had a similar impact. With proper test coverage, these problems could have been avoided, and that’s where Codecov made a real difference. “​​The effort we put into writing tests has proven invaluable. Saving us precious time and resources otherwise spent fixing bugs down the line. Our high-test coverage has become the backbone of our development process, something we now couldn’t live without.” 

Learn more about how Codecov can help drive innovation at your company by getting in touch with one of our code coverage experts.