The Challenge
Roto-Rooter, America's largest plumbing and water cleanup company, had invested significantly in a mobile app project that was failing. The previous development effort had produced an unusable product, and the company needed a complete restart—fast.
The challenge: as a solo engineer, rebuild the entire mobile platform from scratch in 90 days, including real-time GPS tracking, job scheduling, customer booking, and integration with existing backend systems.
Our Approach
- Complete Rebuild: Scrapped failing codebase, started fresh with Flutter
- Real-time GPS: Live technician tracking so customers know exactly when help arrives
- Job Scheduling: Booking system integrated with Roto-Rooter's dispatch operations
- Azure Architecture: Built complete cloud infrastructure from scratch
- Dual Platform: iOS and Android apps from single codebase
- Solo Execution: Complete project delivered by one engineer in 90 days
Architecture
flowchart LR
subgraph Mobile["Flutter App"]
iOS[iOS]
Android[Android]
end
subgraph Azure["Azure Cloud"]
API[Container Apps]
RMQ[RabbitMQ]
end
subgraph Legacy["Legacy Systems"]
AS400[AS/400]
DB2[(DB2)]
end
iOS & Android --> API
API <--> RMQ
RMQ <--> DB2
DB2 <--> AS400
Results
The platform rescue delivered immediate, measurable impact:
- Complete platform rebuilt in 90 days by solo engineer
- 100K+ monthly active users booking plumbing services
- Significantly increased online order volume
- Real-time GPS tracking improved customer satisfaction
- Successfully launched on both iOS and Android app stores
- Rescued a project that was headed for failure
gantt
title Project Timeline
dateFormat X
axisFormat %s
section Rebuild
Platform Assessment :0, 7
Flutter Development :7, 67
Azure Infrastructure :30, 60
iOS Launch :milestone, 85, 0
Android Launch :milestone, 90, 0
Industry Leaders
James Payne
Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at Roto-Rooter
Sally Bayer
Vice President of Marketing at Roto-Rooter
Roto-Rooter App
