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Workforce Learning & Talent Development

From funded startup to acquisition. Three years of engineering that held up through both.

Vanguard X joined before the Degreed acquisition and stayed for nearly three years, building the backend that held up through rapid growth and transition.

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Client Overview

The platform that helps companies build talent academies for a workforce that never stops learning.

Learn In helped companies build internal talent academies — combining learning budgets, program delivery, stipend cards, and coaching into a single platform for HR and L&D teams.

 

Co-founded by the founders of Degreed, Learn In raised $16.6M and was acquired by Degreed in June 2022.

$16.6M

Total funding raised

1,000+

Programs in marketplace

The challenge

Learn In's platform covered a wide range of features budget types, payment methods, program delivery, coaching, and marketplace integrations each requiring deep product understanding to build correctly and maintain at scale.

01

Complex Product Surface

The platform handled multiple budget types, learning stipend cards, tuition benefits, and custom program delivery simultaneously each with distinct business logic that had to be implemented precisely and kept in sync across the stack.

02

Backend Architecture at Startup Speed

Learn In needed a scalable .NET backend with clean service boundaries and well-documented APIs, built fast enough to support a growing product roadmap without accumulating structural debt.

03

Frontend Complexity Across User Roles

HR leaders, employees, coaches, and program administrators each had distinct workflows. The React frontend had to surface the right experience for each role without duplicating logic or slowing iteration.

04

Continuity Through Acquisition

When Degreed acquired Learn In in June 2022, the engineering team needed a partner who already understood the codebase and could maintain delivery velocity through the organizational transition.

05

Security and Data Integrity

The platform handled sensitive employee data, learning budgets, and financial transactions requiring robust security protocols and audit-ready infrastructure from day one.

The solution

Nearshore Innovation for Scalable Impact

Vanguard X joined Learn In two months before the Degreed acquisition and stayed nearly three years, delivering new features, fixing bugs, and maintaining platform stability through a major organizational transition.

Backend Engineering (.NET)

  • Built and maintained the .NET backend using a services-based architecture with clean API design across all core platform features.
  • Implemented business logic for budget management, stipend card processing, tuition benefits, and program enrollment each with distinct rules and integration points.
  • Designed and enforced security protocols to protect sensitive employee and financial data, including access scoping, audit logging, and data integrity checks.

Frontend Development (React.js)

  • Built React.js interfaces for multiple user roles HR administrators, employees, coaches, and program managers each with tailored workflows.
  • Maintained UI consistency and performance as new features were added across the platform, reducing regression risk during rapid iteration cycles.
  • Collaborated closely with the Learn In product team to translate use cases into frontend components that matched business intent.

Platform Stability & Continuity

  • Maintained full engineering continuity through the Degreed acquisition in June 2022, with no loss of context or velocity during the transition.
  • Executed bug fixes and performance improvements that reduced error rates and improved application response times across the platform.
  • Documented system changes and architecture decisions to ensure institutional knowledge was distributed and not dependent on any single engineer.

Impact & Results

Joined before the acquisition. Stayed nearly three years. Built the backend that held up through both. "

34 months

Engagement Duration

Joined two months before the Degreed acquisition. Stayed as core engineering partner through the full transition.

1 Day

Acquisition Continuity

Full codebase context carried through. No ramp-up required.

16,6 M

Raised During Engagement

Supported the platform through Series A and acquisition by Degreed.

1,000+

Programs Supported

The marketplace Learn In built on the platform Vanguard X helped engineer.

We Used Advance TECHNOLOGY

Our engineers bring deep expertise in the most in-demand technologies, frameworks, and programming languages.

Python LLM RAG Machine Learning PyTorch TensorFlow LangChain OpenAI API Anthropic API Cursor GitHub Copilot Claude Code Node.js NestJS React Next.js TypeScript Java Go NET / .NET Core C#
Python LLM RAG Machine Learning PyTorch TensorFlow LangChain OpenAI API Anthropic API Cursor GitHub Copilot Claude Code Node.js NestJS React Next.js TypeScript Java Go NET / .NET Core C#
Ruby on Rails Express Rust PHP JavaScript Angular Vue.js AWS GCP Azure Kubernetes Docker Terraform Serverless Microservices ETL Spark Kafka Snowflake Databricks Airflow Kotlin React Native Flutter iOS Android Selenium Cypress Cucumber Jenkins
Ruby on Rails Express Rust PHP JavaScript Angular Vue.js AWS GCP Azure Kubernetes Docker Terraform Serverless Microservices ETL Spark Kafka Snowflake Databricks Airflow Kotlin React Native Flutter iOS Android Selenium Cypress Cucumber Jenkins

Why choose Vanguard-X

Learn In needed engineers who could own a complex product, build at speed, and stay long enough to matter.

Engineer retention rate

94%

Avg. engineer tenure

2.8 yrs

Fully operational

5 days

Learn In’s platform was complex. Multiple budget types, payment flows, and program logic had to work together. Senior engineers who understood the product from day one.

 

When Degreed acquired Learn In, there was no context lost, no ramp-up. The team already knew the system and kept building.

Learn In didn’t just need engineers for a sprint. They needed a team that would still be there when things changed. Vanguard X was.

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