How a Small Enablement Team Transformed Distributed Testing at ClassPass

When ClassPass faced scaling challenges with their distributed system testing, a small enablement team found an innovative solution that transformed how they approach quality assurance.

The Testing Bottleneck

The company initially struggled with a slow, unmaintainable CLI that made testing distributed systems cumbersome. Without a dedicated QA environment, teams faced significant technical and coordination issues when trying to test their distributed architecture. The situation became untenable as the company grew—for every team attempting to test one thing, they were blocking N minus one teams from making progress.

As Po Linn Chia explained in her presentation at Dev Summit Boston, the traditional approach of trying to fix problems by focusing solely on back-end testing proved insufficient. "We assumed that if we could test the back-end well, that would reduce trickle-down effects to the frontend and mobile testing," Chia said. But the issues were too big for any single team to fix.

The Enablement Team Solution

ClassPass pivoted to a different approach: creating an enablement team that functioned like a tiger team. This small but crucial group was tasked with clearing the path for other teams to do their work effectively. The challenge was finding the right balance—the solution couldn't be too expensive, too complicated, or too disruptive to existing workflows.

The team developed a tool for versioned deployments using CI and proxy routing, enabling developers to run isolated tests on multiple versions of services simultaneously. This allowed them to catch bugs earlier in the development cycle without requiring separate QA environments.

Key Requirements for Success

The enablement team had to navigate several constraints:

• Cost considerations: The solution needed to be financially sustainable
• Complexity limits: It couldn't be so complicated that teams wouldn't adopt it
• Bridge building: Must connect platform and product concerns
• Minimal disruption: Enable different types of existing testing while adding integration test capabilities

"We are not disrupting the current developer experience," Chia explained, "but we're providing them with this shadow realm that will be stable, and the ability to ephemerally spin up things in their PRs and on demand to do whatever testing they want."

The approach empowered mobile and front-end engineers to target specific versions using tools they were already familiar with, reducing the cognitive load of learning entirely new systems.

Cultural Transformation

Implementing new technology is only half the battle—the cultural shift proved equally challenging. "There is a lot of learning, and even the most plugged-in engineer has to deal with endless cognitive load," Chia noted. "People are overwhelmed by how much they have to know."

The enablement team had to recognize that until these practices became embedded in the engineering culture, developers would need to take on additional knowledge acquisition. This required patience, clear communication, and a willingness to support teams through the transition.

Rotating Engineers for Broader Impact

ClassPass implemented a unique approach to spreading knowledge and capabilities across the organization. Within their structure, they have guilds for different engineering disciplines—backend, frontend, and mobile development—as well as a separate platform operations team.

Engineers can rotate onto these guilds temporarily, gaining experience working on cross-team, cross-platform projects. This often serves as their first exposure to operations-type work. "By and large, these rotations have been well-received!" Chia reported. "I think engineers enjoy the chance to work on high-leverage technical projects, and it's a great opportunity to spread working systems/ops knowledge around more broadly, so everyone—including platform operations—wins."

Lessons for Other Organizations

The ClassPass experience offers several valuable lessons for organizations facing similar challenges:

Start small but think strategically: A small team with the right strategy and political will can accomplish significant transformations.

Enable multiple testing types: Don't wait for the perfect testing pyramid. "Try and enable as many types of testing as possible, even if it doesn't fit the perfect practical testing pyramid with all the nice linear boxes; you'll get there, but you have to start small," Chia advised.

Focus on developer experience: The solution should enhance, not disrupt, existing workflows while providing new capabilities.

Build bridges, not walls: The enablement team must connect platform and product concerns rather than creating silos.

Accept the learning curve: Cultural change takes time, and organizations must be prepared to support teams through the transition period.

The ClassPass story demonstrates that even complex distributed system testing challenges can be overcome with the right combination of technical innovation, organizational structure, and cultural awareness. By creating an enablement team focused on clearing obstacles rather than building new ones, they transformed their testing capabilities while maintaining developer productivity and satisfaction.

About the Author: Ben Linders is an adviser, coach, and trainer who helps organizations deploy effective software development and management practices. He focuses on continuous improvement, collaboration and communication, and professional development.