Scaling ShiftGrab: From System Failures to Seamless Growth

How We Helped a Fast-Growing Gig Staffing Startup Eliminate Bottlenecks & Scale Without Breaking

Who We Are

We are Architects Alcove—your Scaling-as-a-Service partner, helping startups become scale-ups through optimize infrastructure, streamline CI/CD, and enhance observability without the cost of a full-time DevOps team. 🚀

I also wanted to ask, how does it feel not having to worry about code?

10:42 AM✓✓

Great! I love not worrying about code, you guys are amazing!!! - Jenny

10:45 AM

About the Client

Shiftgrab is a fast-growing startup revolutionizing how restaurants fill vacant shifts. With a unique marketplace model, Shiftgrab connects gig workers with restaurants that need immediate staffing.

Jenny, the founder, had successfully reached Product-Market Fit (PMF), consistently signing 1-2 new restaurants per week.

Before Working With Us: The Problem

Despite early success, Shiftgrab was hitting serious technical limitations that threatened its growth:

Unstable Bidding System: The core system for matching workers to shifts kept breaking, preventing restaurants from filling positions.
Manual Workarounds: Customers couldn’t create shifts due to bugs, forcing Jenny to manually input shifts—an unsustainable bottleneck.
Growth at Risk: Shiftgrab’s growth rate was constrained by the platform’s fragility, making it impossible to scale efficiently.

With Shiftgrab’s goal of seamlessly placing any gig worker at any restaurant in need, the infrastructure needed to scale without breaking under pressure.

Implementing Our Solution: A Full Revamp in a Month

We conducted a deep technical audit and uncovered that the existing system was fundamentally unscalable. Instead of patching an unreliable system, we proposed a complete rebuild that would:

✅ Eliminate existing bottlenecks in the bidding and shift creation process.
✅ Ensure seamless gig worker placement by making the system resilient and highly available.
✅ Support rapid growth with a foundation that could handle 10x more restaurants and workers.

Over the next 30 days, we worked closely with Jenny to build a new, scalable, and robust platform that could match and place gig workers without friction.

The Results

🚀 30% Increase in Platform Usage: Restaurants and gig workers are using the system without downtime or manual intervention.
🛠️ 200+ Hours Saved Per Month: Jenny no longer has to manually enter shifts, allowing her to focus on business growth and marketing.
📊 Complete Visibility with Analytics: Integrated Posthog analytics provides insight into customer behavior, helping optimize engagement and retention.

Need to Scale Fast Without Breaking?

If your business is growing but technical challenges are holding you back, let’s talk.

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