From one slow page to the whole planner

I joined Vandra in 2022 for one job: the search page for venues took eight seconds to load, and customers had started to say so. It took me six weeks to get it under one second. Most of the work was removing things, not adding them.

The page that led to the rest

Fixing search meant reading every part of the planner that called it. By the end I knew the planner better than anyone, mostly because nobody else had needed to. When we decided to rebuild it a year later, I asked to lead it, and I got a yes the same week.

How we rebuilt it

We did not stop the old planner. We moved one screen at a time, starting with the one people used least, and kept both running side by side for five months. Every Friday the team wrote a short note on what moved and what broke. We shipped the last screen in March 2024 and deleted the old code the week after.

Why I still go on the trips

I have been on seven team trips. Every time, I watch someone plan the next one in the planner, usually on a phone, usually in a hurry. It is the best review our work gets, and nobody has to write it down.