Maintaining a competitive edge in retail trading requires overcoming the difficulties of in-house software development, according to Arthur Azizov, the CEO and Founder of B2Broker Group. During a recent Finance Magnates London Summit 2023 (FMLS:23) panel entitled "Challenges of Inhouse Software Development in FinTech", Azizov shared his perspective on sparking creativity and pushing progress in the fintech sector.

The Challenges of In-House Software Development in Fintech

Azizov emphasized the difference in perception of software products between clients and engineers. "From a client's perspective, the focus is on the front end. The buttons, coloring, updates," he stated. However, engineers see "many different components that need to be updated, synchronized, and communicated among themselves."

From an engineering standpoint, there are many interconnected components powering that front end, all of which need updating, synchronizing, and communicating. This dichotomy highlighted the complexity behind a seemingly straightforward user interface.

The Importance of Microservices

According to the CEO of B2Broker Group, a key way to manage software complexity is through a microservices architecture.

"As long as you keep every single job service, let's go it this way. Dedicated service. In particular, you can keep this code, it can be encapsulated into the Docker container that will be independently running on your cloud based technology."

This allows individual components to be updated, replaced or removed without needing to re-release the entire product. Azizov gave the example of his company's B2Core product now in its third back-end generation and fourth front-end generation.

Microservices enable more targeted improvements by developers across disciplines like front-end, back-end, testing and DevOps. Faster deployment of updates is also facilitated. However, Azizov cautioned against the overuse of microservices, particularly in certain technologies like trading platforms. He noted the potential drawbacks of excessive component separation, such as increased latency and decreased speed, advocating for a balanced approach.

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The Need for Advanced Testing

With software components increasingly decoupled, robust testing methodologies also become mandatory. He outlined a testing pipeline spanning from unit tests written by developers to integration tests, regression tests, and test automation for API endpoints and front-end code. While time-consuming to set up, the end goal is full automation from code commit to pipeline deployment.

Manual testing still has a role too, according to Azizov, with specialized QA engineers trying to account for all possible real-world scenarios.

The Cloud and Infrastructure Considerations

Azizov also touched on infrastructure choices and their impact. While Kubernetes (open-source platforms for managing workloads) helps applications scale, he admitted, "too get up and running Kubernetes, it's a very, very complex job."

Hence, the appeal of managed Kubernetes from major cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure: "They manage Kubernetes. Basically, Amazon's already behind the scenes. They already integrated Kubernetes within their cloud infrastructure."

Though this cloud infrastructure costs more upfront, it can save much time and money down the line. Monitoring tools like Grafana are also now vital for visibility into system bottlenecks.

Additional Challenges: Hiring and More

Azizov concluded by listing other pain points like hiring enough sufficiently skilled developers, keeping teams aligned with Agile methodologies, transitioning design to reusable component libraries, and more.

The CEO of B2Broker touched on the challenges of hiring skilled personnel in a market flooded with junior developers. "Only 5% to 10% are really skilled enough to get the job done," he estimated, emphasizing the need for robust hiring pipelines and ongoing training.

Concluding his talk, Azizov briefly mentioned B2Broker's upcoming projects, including a digital banking platform and crypto processing services. In summary, Azizov painted a picture of fintech software development as a complex balancing act. But, he believes the latest technologies and methodologies can help teams better meet the challenge.