Online Assessment Platform: MVP to 1.5 Lakh Users in 3 Weeks
An assessment practice platform built and shipped in 3 weeks, scaled to handle 1.5 lakh concurrent users and processed $70K+ in payments.
The Problem
An EdTech company focused on K-12 learning runs a national assessment contest. Students prepare for the contest by practicing assessment worksheets.
The problem: printing and distributing physical worksheets to schools across the country had logistics and cost issues. They needed an online portal where students could practice assessments digitally, accessible, scalable, and able to handle payments for the competition's second round.
What We Built
An online assessment practice platform with three core features:
- Practice assessments: MCQ-format worksheets for Round 1 of the contest
- Certificates and scorecards: downloadable after completing assessments
- Payment integration: students pay for Round 2 entry through a payment gateway
Tech Stack
- React.js frontend, fast, responsive assessment interface
- Express.js + Node.js backend. API layer handling assessment logic and scoring
- PostgreSQL: relational database for users, assessments, scores, and payment records
- Razorpay SDK: payment gateway integration for contest registration
- GCP Cloud Run: containerized deployment, auto-scaling
How We Worked
The defining constraint: speed. The MVP was built and productionised in just 3 weeks. The team, 1 full-stack developer handling backend and frontend wireframing, 1 frontend engineer implementing the UI, shipped a working platform from scratch in time for the contest deadline.
After the initial launch, a DevOps engineer joined to handle cloud services and deployment as the user base scaled rapidly.
The scale challenge: The platform grew to 1,57,632 registered users. Handling massive database read and write operations at this scale, during peak contest periods, was the hardest technical challenge. The team optimized queries, added connection pooling, and tuned the infrastructure to handle the load.
The Result
1.5 lakh users registered on the platform. Over $70K+ in revenue processed through the payment gateway for Round 2 registrations.
The product is live and actively used. The client renewed for 2 additional months of maintenance after the initial build, the team continued to support, optimize, and scale the platform through the contest season.
Technical Deep Dive
How we think about the problem, the tech trade-offs we made, and what we'd do differently. Written by the engineers who shipped it.
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