In today’s fast-changing business environment, an established client faced a strategic technology challenge: its core payroll system - a critical backbone for operations and client onboarding - was showing its age. It struggled with scalability limits, performance bottlenecks and rising operational costs, creating a risk to continuity and competitiveness.
The stakes were significant: payroll is central to business operations, especially when supporting tens of thousands of self-employed clients. The client needed a modern, robust payroll engine capable of handling peak workloads, integrating with external HR platforms, and supporting future innovation without disrupting ongoing operations.
The mission was clear: replace an outdated system with a future-ready payroll engine that elevates performance, scalability, flexibility and long-term viability.
we+ approached the challenge with a strategic and technical vision rooted in real operational needs and industry best practices.
Rather than pursuing a big-bang rewrite that risked disruption, the team crafted a progressive transformation blueprint focused on:
Incremental improvements to manage complexity while reducing risk
Modular architecture enabling flexibility and extensibility
Data-driven engineering practices with measurable processes and iterative feedback loops
Developer empowerment through mentorship, standards and collaborative leadership
Agile delivery frameworks to maintain progress with transparency and adaptability
The architecture was designed not only to replace the legacy payroll engine, but also to support future growth, integrations and evolving business requirements.
we+ played a central role in guiding and executing the modernization program, acting as technical lead and architect while collaborating closely with development, infrastructure and DevOps teams.
Technical leadership and architecture
we+ provided expert support by:
Designing the new payroll engine architecture
Leading technical interviews and onboarding additional developers
Mentoring internal teams and strengthening technical capability
Setting high standards for code quality, DevOps integration and operational resilience
Coordinating releases and resolving complex challenges with clarity
Data-driven methodology
The team adopted structured, measurable processes including:
Agile frameworks (SCRUM & Kanban) for managing complexity
DevOps principles for continuous delivery and quality assurance
Architecture modeling (C4) for visualizing and optimizing system structure
Incremental implementation
Focus was placed on gradual improvements to avoid breaking existing functionality, reinforce confidence in the new system, and maintain momentum throughout the transformation.
The initiative resulted in a robust, modern payroll system that meets both present and future needs:
Improved performance and scalability - The new payroll engine is designed to handle peak loads effortlessly, supporting high-volume processing.
Strong technical foundation - A modular architecture enables integration with external HR systems and future extensions without major disruption.
Operational continuity and growth support - The system lays the groundwork for future innovation and business expansion.
Enhanced team capability - Through mentorship, leadership and standards, internal teams have strengthened their expertise in modern engineering practices.
By early December 2024, the new payroll system was set to go live supporting tens of thousands of self-employed clients - a measurable milestone showing that the transformation has delivered both performance gains and future readiness.
A client case by Geert Guldentops