How Bolt uses GitHub

Bolt leans on automation to stay ahead of the competition and better serve their customers.

About Bolt

Location: Tallinn, Estonia

Industry: Software - Rideshare, Scooter rentals and Food delivery

Customer Since: 2019

Bolt launched in Estonia in 2013 as the country's first alternative to traditional taxi services. Today, the company has 30 million customers across 35 countries and 150 cities around the world, with 1,600 employees supporting their expanding global presence.

The Challenge

When Bolt's business was rapidly growing and they were hiring more developers to support it, unreliable software development tools threatened to slow their momentum. Their source code management tool experienced a number of outages, which meant developers couldn't work and new features couldn't be delivered to users.

"If something as essential as the code repository is down, developers can't do their work," said Lauri Lutter, Senior Engineering Manager. "And in turn, we're not able to create or deliver new features to our users."

The Solution

Bolt chose GitHub Enterprise and moved their code to the cloud. "Maintaining an appliance just isn't our core focus," explained Ainar Sepp, Engineering Excellence Manager. "Keeping our code and toolsets in the cloud helps us focus on Bolt."

Automation and Efficiency

A number of Bolt product teams rely on GitHub Actions to automate their CI/CD workflows. "Our process is highly automated," said Lutter. "You can basically release your feature with just a few clicks." GitHub automatically runs all necessary tests and checks before releasing features to Bolt's different server instances. Bolt has also set up Actions to automatically publish release notes and create releases in Jira.

By fully embracing GitHub's features, Bolt streamlined their vendors and cut costs by replacing their previous CI/CD and package management tools with GitHub Actions and GitHub Packages. "It made more sense to use a feature already provided by the system handling your code instead of integrating with a third party," explained Sepp. "It helps us keep everything closer to the code."

Developer Ownership and Security

Every developer at Bolt owns their code and its outcome in production. Instead of relying on separate security or QA teams, developers write their own tests and are considered "code owners" from start to finish. This approach speeds up the development process in the long run.

"Your mindset changes when you own your code from development to production," said Sepp. "It's not something you write and hand over to a QA team for testing." Developers also monitor production and fix anything that goes wrong after it's live, which helps them learn from mistakes and make changes faster.

All of Bolt's repositories have automated security alerts turned on. When potential vulnerabilities are identified, GitHub automatically generates pull requests with recommended security updates for developers to review and approve. "Developers can check the alerts, and if they get an automated pull request, merge it in. It makes Bolt more secure for our customers."

Open Source and Community

Bolt recognizes that making code public through open source can sometimes make it more secure than keeping it private. "Open source means having more eyes on your code—which means vulnerabilities can be spotted faster," said Sepp. Bolt runs a bug bounty program with Bugcrowd to encourage community engagement with their code.

Open source also keeps the team nimble and focused on their core product. "The great thing about open source is every commit is public—you can always see what's under the hood," explained Sepp. "You can understand what every function does in a project that would otherwise be quite expensive to build yourself."

Developers at Bolt have contributed to popular projects they rely on internally, such as NodeJS, EmberJS, React, and React Native. "If we find a bug, then of course we will try to fix it and give back to the community," said Lutter. Contributing to these open source projects often gives them better insight into how the frameworks function under the hood.

Bolt also sees their open source presence as a way to attract talent. "It's great to have increased visibility at a time when we are growing fast and hiring more engineers," says Sepp. "It shows developers that we're a company that not only produces good services, but also contributes to open source."

Streamlined Onboarding

Onboarding new developers has been simplified since Bolt started using GitHub. While new hires still need to get familiar with Bolt's codebase and processes, most developers already have GitHub accounts and know their way around repositories and deployments. This significantly speeds up the onboarding process.

Results

GitHub gives developers an entirely seamless and integrated experience, which allows them to be more productive. "GitHub provides tools that are, in a sense, invisible," says Sepp. "You don't have to waste time trying to get them to do what you want—they just work."

Bolt can depend on GitHub to provide the reliable service and streamlined tools they need to enhance their software development process and compete with bigger players. "All of our core services were built with GitHub," explained Sepp. "We are essentially serving our entire user base through GitHub."