Close

Close: The CRM Wizards You'll Fall in Love With

Ahoy there, curious one! Let us introduce you to Close, a bootstrapped, profitable, and 100% remote company that has been sprinkling its magic on startups and SMBs since 2013. With a ~70 person team of thoughtful individuals who value autonomy and impact, Close has been crafting a CRM that focuses on better communication, sans the hassle of manual data entry or complex UI. Their goal? To double the productivity of every sales rep. Impressive, right?

A Tech Stack That'll Make You Swoon

Close's app frontend is a single-page JavaScript/TypeScript web app, mostly written in React, while their mobile app is built using React Native. The backend tech stack is a delightful concoction of Python/Flask, MongoDB, Postgres, Elasticsearch, and Redis, communicating with clients via REST API & GraphQL endpoints. And where do they run their services? In Docker on AWS, of course!

Code Quality and Testing: Close's Love Language

At Close, they care deeply about the performance, maintainability, and testability of their code. Writing unit/integration tests is embedded into their engineering culture, and they test more complex features end-to-end via Cypress. They also house lists of manual test steps for critical features like calling and composing emails. Their focus is on testing actual user behavior, leveraging the Testing Library approach.

Product Development Process: Sweating the Details

Close's product development process is inspired by Shape Up. They sweat the UI/UX details and work collaboratively with the Product team throughout the design process. They think about testing in the technical specification phase and continuously spend time assuring they’re shipping a high-quality product.

Open Source and Behind-the-Scenes Magic

Close loves to share their code and ideas on their GitHub and their behind-the-scenes Product & Engineering blog, The Making of Close. Check out their projects like TaskTiger and use-infinite-scroll, or insights from their day-to-day work such as Rendering untrusted HTML email, safely, How We Improved Reliability Of Our WebSocket Connections, and A Case Study in "Reactizing" a Complex Backbone View.

And that, dear reader, is the enchanting world of Close. A company that's not only building a CRM to fall in love with but also creating a work environment where talented individuals from around the globe can thrive and make an impact. So, what are you waiting for? Come, be a part of this magical journey!