Welcome to The New Stack Makers: Scaling New Heights, a series of interviews, conducted by Scalyr CEO Christine Heckart, who discusses the problems engineering managers have faced when scaling architectures to support the demands of the business.

Mai Le is Nextdoor’s head of engineering. She and her team knew they had to do something for small businesses suffering in the pandemic. They needed to develop ways to connect them with their local customers and this was especially important for Nextdoor. Social networks have served as hubs for small businesses with Nextdoor standing out more than most.

After her team’s considerable effort, it should have been smooth sailing. But, with only two weeks until launch, Le couldn’t get the new service to work.