One Tribe

TL;DR

Rescued and rebuilt a carbon offsetting SaaS platform for One Tribe, transforming a problematic inherited codebase into a stable, high-performing system while adding new carbon emissions calculator features and a secure admin interface.

About

One Tribe is a sustainability SaaS platform that enables e-commerce brands to offset carbon through tree planting with each customer purchase. They've since expanded to provide carbon offsetting solutions for enterprise customers and event organisers. I worked on this project while at Antler Digital, a company that builds tech solutions for startups and enterprise clients.

Challenge

We inherited an MVP with some technical debt that can come with building fast and finding product market-fit - performance issues, stability problems, and outdated dependencies. The system integrated with multiple third parties (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, MailChimp) and handled transactions that translated to tree planting, but Stripe's webhook architecture created sequencing problems.

The original architecture used multiple databases unnecessarily, creating complexity that slowed development. Client account management required direct database interaction, creating security risks. Meanwhile, the business needed new features like carbon emissions calculators and brand pages.

Solution

Working in a team of four developers and one product manager, we first converted the codebase to TypeScript and upgraded dependencies across all repositories. We improved the CI/CD pipelines to enforce better code quality standards.

Next, we simplified the architecture by migrating from Firebase to a structured PostgreSQL database. This required carefully mapping the existing NoSQL data to a relational model that would support efficient queries. However, the big problem was transferring the 1.5 million records while minimising data loss during the migration deployment. For this we setup the new database alongside the existing one to ensure there were no issue in storing the data. We then stripped out the legacy database once live testing was successful.

To eliminate risky direct database access for client management, we built a dedicated admin application using Next.js with React Server Components and the app router. This provided a secure, efficient interface for managing client accounts.

I personally led development of the carbon emissions calculators, collaborating with ESG specialists at Tunley to transform their technical inputs into a comprehensive backend API and an intuitive UI. Users could input relevant details and receive PDF reports showing their emissions and offsetting costs, with extensive testing to ensure accuracy.

Result

The rebuilt platform provided One Tribe with a stable, scalable system that could reliably process transactions across multiple e-commerce platforms. The secure admin interface eliminated database security risks while streamlining client management. The new carbon calculators expanded their service offerings, helping them attract enterprise clients beyond their initial e-commerce focus.