Background
Client
Paddy Power Betfair
Challenge
Build and integrate into strategic roadmap
Year
2019
Paddy Power Betfair, the second largest gaming operator in Europe at the time, embarked on an ambitious expansion program to simultaneously launch in multiple new markets within a year, requiring substantial engineering capacity to adapt their platform for local currencies, languages, and regulatory requirements. We built and managed 2 full-stack scrum teams totaling engineers across seniority levels, sharing 1 proxy product owner, 1 scrum master, and 1 DevOps engineer to maximize efficiency and alignment. Our proxy product owner interfaced directly with Paddy Power Betfair’s Head of Product, translating business requirements into technical user stories and enabling the teams to work autonomously alongside the client’s internal teams. The coordinated delivery model enabled Paddy Power Betfair to successfully roll out 12 new countries simultaneously, each with full language and currency support and automatic compliance with local regulations, completing this complex expansion roadmap on schedule.
The ask
In 2019, Paddy Power Betfair, at the time the second largest gaming operator in Europe, launched an extensive expansion program to enter multiple new markets simultaneously. This ambitious initiative required the platform to support local currencies and languages across a dozen countries, along with wallet adaptations and product modifications to ensure compliance with diverse regulatory frameworks. The scale and complexity of this roadmap—targeted for completion within a year—demanded significant additional engineering manpower beyond their existing internal capacity.
Paddy Power Betfair needed more than just individual engineers; they required fully functional, autonomous teams that could integrate seamlessly with their existing engineering organization and deliver with high velocity. The teams would need to handle both front-end and back-end development for wallet systems, payment integrations, localization features, and regulatory compliance mechanisms. Given the tight timeline and the need for consistent delivery across multiple markets, coordination and alignment across teams would be critical to success.
The solution
We conducted comprehensive workshops with Paddy Power Betfair’s Head of Product and engineering leadership to understand the expansion roadmap, technical architecture, and the specific team composition needed. Recognizing the need for both versatility and cost-effectiveness, we designed a strategic structure: 2 identical full-stack scrum teams, each with their own tech lead, senior engineers, mid-level engineers, and junior engineers, but sharing 1 proxy product owner, 1 scrum master, and 1 DevOps engineer across both teams. This shared leadership model ensured super-alignment in process, priorities, and delivery standards while maximizing efficiency.
We sourced and pre-screened full-stack engineers from Eastern Europe with experience in fintech, payment systems, and regulated industries, ensuring they had the technical breadth to handle wallet adaptations, localization, and compliance requirements. After presenting shortlisted candidates, Paddy Power Betfair approved the team compositions, and we handled all employment documentation and onboarding logistics. We integrated both teams directly into Paddy Power Betfair’s engineering organization, positioning them alongside several identical internal teams working on the same expansion roadmap. Our proxy product owner became the critical interface, working directly with Paddy Power Betfair’s Head of Product to receive business requirements and cascading them into well-defined technical user stories for both teams. This structure allowed the teams to operate autonomously with minimal overhead, delivering independently toward the roadmap with great velocity. Throughout the engagement, we actively monitored team performance, facilitated sprint ceremonies, and ensured continuous alignment with Paddy Power Betfair’s evolving priorities.
The outcome
The two full-stack teams we built and managed delivered exceptional results, enabling Paddy Power Betfair to successfully execute their aggressive expansion timeline. Both teams worked in lockstep with the client’s internal engineering teams, implementing sophisticated wallet adaptations to handle multiple currencies, developing localization frameworks to support diverse languages, and building compliance mechanisms that automatically adapted the platform to meet local regulatory requirements in each target market. The shared proxy product owner model proved highly effective, ensuring both teams remained perfectly aligned on priorities while the dedicated scrum master maintained consistent velocity and delivery quality.
Within the targeted one-year timeframe, Paddy Power Betfair successfully rolled out 12 new countries simultaneously, each with full language and currency support and automatic compliance with local regulations. The platform seamlessly handled the complexity of multiple payment methods, currency conversions, localized user experiences, and jurisdiction-specific gaming regulations across all new markets. Our teams’ autonomous delivery model—requiring minimal oversight from Paddy Power Betfair’s leadership while maintaining high quality standards—allowed the client’s internal teams to focus on other strategic initiatives. The cost-effective structure we designed, with shared leadership roles across teams, delivered premium engineering capacity at a sustainable budget, proving that the outstaffing model could support even the most complex, time-sensitive strategic initiatives. Our ongoing performance management throughout the expansion ensured both teams consistently met sprint commitments and maintained the high velocity required to hit the ambitious go-live dates across all 12 markets.
