Zirtue

• •Who: Zirtue, a platform simplifying peer-to-peer lending.
• •Need: A robust, scalable architecture delivering security, reliability, and rapid feature development.
• •Outcome: A continuously evolving system built on carefully chosen patterns (Event Sourcing, CQRS, microservices) that balance necessary complexity with small team-friendly design.

Zirtue set out to remove the stress and uncertainty from lending money between friends and family. By streamlining transactions and ensuring transparent agreements, Zirtue aimed to empower people financially—minus the complexity of traditional banking.

From the start, the goal was ambitious: scale quickly, handle sensitive financial data securely, and maintain user trust throughout.

That’s where Space Architects came in.

Zirtue's platform had to address four key requirements:

• •Recoverability
  Comprehensive traceability of every financial transaction, and user action, enabling rapid issue resolution.
• •Scalability
  An architecture prepared to handle surging transaction volumes and an expanding user base.
• •Availability
  Near-zero downtime to foster user confidence in a high-stakes financial environment.
• •Agility
  The ability to develop and deploy new features quickly without destabilizing the platform.

Event Sourcing and CQRS aren’t your typical choices for smaller teams. They’re complex, lack universal best practices, and can overwhelm developers without the right structure.
But for Zirtue, they were essential:

• •Full Traceability
  Every action—loan creation, repayment tracking, user events—is immutably recorded.
• •Deferred Deep InsightsHistorical data can be revisited anytime, powering innovation without costly rework.

Implementing these patterns successfully was a major achievement.
But we knew this level of sophistication required guardrails:

• •Custom TypeScript framework
  We built a streamlined framework that hides the intricacies of Event Sourcing and CQRS while enforcing best practices.
• •Error Reduction
  Wrong implementations simply won't compile.
• •Agility
  Developers can focus on business logic rather than wrestling with underlying complexity.

By adopting these patterns only where absolutely necessary, we balanced advanced capabilities with simplicity.

Microservices are traditionally avoided by smaller teams due to the operational complexity they introduce—often reserved for large enterprises with hundreds of developers. Nonetheless, we chose microservices here to:

• •Reduce Impact of Failures
  If one service goes down, the entire platform doesn’t collapse. Failures happen, but isolation keeps them contained.
• •Simplify Scaling
  Each service is responsible for a well-defined domain and automatically scales based on actual usage.
• •Anticipate Team Growth
  Microservices open the door for scaling not just in throughput but also in development capacity.

Making microservices work for a small team required smart optimizations:

• •Self-Configuring CI/CD Pipeline
  Automations ensured services could be deployed and updated seamlessly, reducing the burden on developers.
• •Internal Framework
  Services can be built blazingly fast with s small team.
• •Lean Service Design
  We kept the number of services minimal and well scoped, avoiding unnecessary complexity while preserving modularity.

Space Architects believes in strong foundations fueling continuous progress.
For Zirtue, this meant:

• •Deliver an initial working version within two quarters to get an early feedback on core features like loan creation, repayment tracking, and money transfers.
• •Release the full product within a year.

By applying advanced architecture patterns in the right places and keeping them lean for a small team, Zirtue’s platform now shows:

• •Seamless Scalability
  Easily handles user growth and high transaction volumes.
• •Recoverability & Transparency
  Comprehensive event traceability supports quick incident resolution and fosters user trust.
• •Consistent High Availability
  Near-zero downtime, thanks to carefully isolated services and practical AWS-based load distribution.
• •Agile Feature Delivery
  Continuous improvements and new functionalities roll out smoothly, ensuring ongoing innovation.

• •Foundations First
  Solid architecture pays off. It ensures scalability and agility without needing costly rebuilds.
• •Smart Complexity
  Event Sourcing and CQRS are powerful but must be implemented with discipline to avoid overwhelming smaller teams.
• •Lean Microservices
  Even in smaller setups, microservices can reduce failure impact and prepare for future growth — if kept minimal and well-automated.

At Space Architects, we tackle complexity only where it delivers the most value, never letting it become an obstacle to speed or stability.

For Zirtue, that meant a purposeful blend of Event Sourcing, CQRS, and microservices—strategies normally reserved for bigger teams but adapted for a lean environment.

The result? A platform that scales effortlessly, delivers new features fast, and earns user trust at every step.