From Rapid Start to a Scalable Architecture: How Headway Inc Builds EdTech Products with Google Cloud and GitLab

In 2022, we already shared the early stages of our collaboration with Headway Inc (then Headway) and how Cloudfresh helped optimize infrastructure, data processing, and scaling for an app that had surpassed 12 million downloads at the time.

Since then, Headway Inc has grown significantly—in scale, product portfolio, and team size. Today, the company develops five products (Headway, Nibble, Skillsta, Addmile, and Impulse), works even more actively with mobile platforms, continues to evolve its CI/CD processes, and builds a flexible architecture capable of handling peak loads.

What Headway Inc’s Infrastructure Looks Like Today

Headway Inc’s infrastructure is built on Google Cloud in collaboration with Cloudfresh, an official Google Cloud partner, and continues to evolve based on the needs of each product. The team prioritizes flexibility, fast launches, stability at scale, and reduced technical complexity at early stages. The core of the architecture includes the following services:

• Firebase as a unified platform for development, authentication, A/B testing, Remote Config, and AppCheck. It is especially valuable for quickly launching new products without the need for complex backend systems (used in Headway, Nibble, and Skillsta);
• Cloud Storage for reliable file storage and backups, which is critical when working with multimedia content;
• BigQuery + Cloud Composer + Dataform to build a powerful data warehouse, automate ETL processes, and manage SQL code. This combination provides reliability in data delivery and flexibility in analytics workflows.

• Pub/Sub to link services through an event-based system. It supports multi-stage event processing (raw → pending → enriched → processed), makes it easy to add business logic, and remains stable under heavy load;

• Cloud SQL as the primary database for certain services, including the payment module, enabling quick deployment of a managed relational database with private access and automatic backups.

Firebase as a Platform for Flexible and Fast Development

Historically, Headway, Nibble, and Skillsta were launched on Firebase. This choice proved strategic due to its simplicity, speed, and flexibility—especially in early stages, when testing hypotheses and adapting to user needs quickly is essential.

Firebase enabled the team to:

1. Launch products without complex backend infrastructure;
2. Reduce development time for new features;
3. Focus on product value instead of technical barriers.

Key Firebase components actively used by the team include:

• Firebase Remote Config for changing app logic without releases, offering flexibility that is often unavailable even in paid alternatives;
• Authentication particularly convenient for mobile platforms;
• Cloud Functions for implementing backend logic without complex infrastructure;
• AppCheck, Firestore, and A/B Testing for security, data storage, and experimentation.

Firebase demonstrated high stability during peak loads, including Q5 in 2022 and 2023. However, in 2024, the team encountered scaling limitations, such as Firestore database throttling, which affected system stability.

Despite this, the overall architecture allowed the team to respond effectively to traffic growth, maintain flexibility when adding new features, and quickly scale products with proven unit economics.

Recent features include audio episodes in Nibble and streak functionality, which deepens user engagement. These features not only enrich the products but also showcase the flexibility of a Firebase-based architecture.

Analytics in Action: How Firebase Helps Understand Users Better

Firebase integration provides not only development flexibility but also deep insight into how users interact with Headway Inc’s products. Analytics enables the team to track activity in real time, adapt functionality, and make decisions based on actual data.

As a result, the team can see:

These metrics do more than demonstrate success—they allow the team to test hypotheses quickly, understand audience response, and focus on features that truly improve the user experience.

GitLab: Control, Transparency, and a Stable Engineering Culture

As Headway Inc grew to more than 100 repositories, the need for structured organization, reliable access control, and transparent engineering processes became clear. The team chose GitLab to organize projects within a company-wide structure, manage access at multiple levels, and centralize analytics.

Key reasons for the transition included:

• Flexible structure for organizing repositories and access management through folders and hierarchical organization;
• Security, with granular access control at the product and team levels;
• Built-in analytics, replacing external tools and simplifying reporting and monitoring;
• CI/CD, tightly integrated across most stages of development.

Today, GitLab is fully integrated into Headway Inc’s CI/CD workflows. Pipelines cover most development processes, including releases and deployments, while specialized tasks (such as iOS builds) rely on additional tools.

This transition has significantly improved engineering organization—processes became clearer, more controlled, and more transparent across teams.

GitLab + Google Cloud Integration: Controlled and Flexible Deployment

To maintain development speed and scale environments for new products, Headway Inc built close integration between GitLab and Google Cloud.

GitLab handles CI/CD: every change to the main branch automatically triggers deployment to staging. All environments run on Google Cloud, which provides the flexibility, security, and scalability needed for a dynamic product portfolio.

Even though full automation for every change is still planned, the current setup already delivers stable processes, faster testing, and straightforward scaling for new products and features. Engineers can quickly create new environments while retaining centralized control through GitLab CI/CD.

This approach allows Headway Inc to develop multiple products in parallel while staying flexible in architecture and fast in engineering—without losing control.

Cloudfresh: Support at Every Stage of Growth

Headway Inc’s collaboration with Cloudfresh began in 2022 with a request for optimal Google Cloud terms. Since then, Cloudfresh has become a trusted partner, supporting both Google Cloud infrastructure and GitLab-based CI/CD processes.

Cloudfresh specialists regularly advise Headway Inc on Google Cloud and GitLab licensing and billing models, as well as on using Firebase and other Google Cloud services in new products. This support allows the Headway Inc team to stay focused on product development while relying on an experienced partner.

Looking ahead, the partnership will expand into security, performance monitoring, and infrastructure scaling for new markets—helping Headway Inc strengthen DevOps controls, adapt architecture to growing demand, and enter new regions with confidence.