Rebuilding Community:
Platform Migration

When a talent community outgrew Slack, I was brought in to lead the migration to a custom-built, open-source tool embedded in a proprietary platform. The move improved scalability, reduced costs by 80%, and created a foundation for a 100K+ member expansion.

My Role

I researched potential platform vendors and presented my findings to leadership, developed a clear migration strategy for the community team, and ensured a smooth adoption process. The goal was to make the transition seamless for users while maintaining engagement levels, and to have a really strong set of user permissions, data visibility and compliance in the backend.

A major focus was on creating a structured comms plan to be executed by the community team, some of whom were new recruits. This entailed nurturing a team of volunteer Community Champions to moderate the migrated channels. Additionally, information on the migration was provided via email in the regular community newsletter, during Community Town Halls of up to 300 attendees, and in a dedicated live webinar that was available as a recording afterwards.

I managed complex dynamics with external vendors Slack and RocketChat, coordinating with account leads, customer success managers and engineers, to save the company an additional €48k in hidden rollover costs.

I also worked closely with product teams to integrate the new platform into the company’s broader ecosystem, ensuring long-term scalability and alignment with business goals.

Launch, impact, results

💰 80% cost reduction

📈 Scalable to 100K+ members

✅ Stronger integration between community & product offerings.

Project context

Initiated by: Community Team (developer talent community)

Organization Type: Global SME, Private Talent Marketplace

Project Duration: 9 months

Project Sponsor: Head of Community, Director of Talent

Challenges & Reflection

The project had some early issues with the talent community, when the idea of the migration was soft-launched too soon in the process. Regaining trust ahead of the transition required additional effort that could have been avoided with more certainty around migration details from the outset. Clearer communication with the Product team at the planning stage would have prevented some of the early friction, as only later did it become evident that this migration was tied to a bigger platform launch, which the Community team had no control over.

I created a positive outcome from an extended project window by taking time to identify gaps and assumptions around what this community of highly skilled tech workers would actually want from a new community space and chat function, and seeing that this data was fed back to the product managers and engineering leads responsible.

While product managers excel in customer discovery, it’s often the customers themselves who hold the clearest insights into their own needs, concerns, and desires. Ensuring their voices are heard, not just interpreted, can make all the difference in shaping a successful implementation.