Autobutler Platform Evolution

Context & Challenge

Autobutler is a marketplace connecting car owners with workshops across Denmark. After several years of growth, the company faced a common challenge: technical complexity had increased, the team had become smaller, and maintaining velocity while reducing costs became critical.

The challenge was threefold: simplify the architecture, reduce annual tech spend by millions, and ensure the remaining team could continue to deliver features that mattered to the business.

Approach

Rather than pursuing a big-bang rewrite or adding more complexity, I focused on pragmatic simplification:

• Architecture simplification: Consolidating services and removing unnecessary abstraction layers that added more friction than value.
• Infrastructure optimization: Right-sizing infrastructure, removing redundant systems, and moving to more cost-effective solutions without sacrificing reliability.
• Stakeholder alignment: Working closely with leadership to align technical decisions with business outcomes and communicate trade-offs clearly.
• Migration paths: Creating incremental, low-risk paths to move from the current state to a simplified future, ensuring no disruption to the business.

Results

Beyond cost savings, the work resulted in a simpler, more maintainable codebase that the smaller team could operate confidently. Technical complexity decreased, decision-making became clearer, and the business could focus on outcomes that moved the needle rather than fighting technical debt.

Key Takeaways

This project reinforced several important lessons:

• → Simplification is often more valuable than feature development, especially when teams are constrained.
• → Clear, written communication with stakeholders about trade-offs creates alignment and trust.
• → Incremental migration paths allow you to make progress without betting the company on a risky transition.
• → Technical decisions must serve business outcomes — cost reduction is an outcome, not just a constraint.