The project
A full Magento 2 build for an online furniture retailer, replacing their existing site, with Unbxd integrated for site search and merchandising. I was tech lead and team lead from design hand-off to go-live.
How we ran it
- Protect the starting point. Before any work began, the existing website was backed up in full, so content and data could always be recovered or compared.
- A consistent workflow from day one. Ticket-named feature branches, release branches and pull requests, documented for the team in the project’s development workflow.
- Search as a first-class feature. For a catalogue customers browse visually, search and merchandising have a direct effect on sales, so the Unbxd integration was planned as part of the build rather than added later.
- A written go-live checklist covering every launch step, owner and check.
The result
A new Magento 2 store with improved search capabilities and site performance, launched through a planned, checklist-driven release.
The lesson
A full build is hundreds of small decisions. Writing the important ones down, from the branching model to the launch checklist, is what lets a team move quickly without losing track.
