TouchTunes Mobile Team Scaling
Supporting the development and transition of a large-scale mobile platform
About TouchTunes
TouchTunes is the global leader in digital jukebox technology, operating thousands of connected jukeboxes across bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues in North America.
Through its mobile application, users can control jukeboxes remotely, select songs, and interact with the music playing in venues around them.
Handling millions of transactions and interactions each week, TouchTunes relies on a robust and scalable mobile infrastructure to support its large user base.
Project overview
The project
As part of the complete rebuild of its mobile platform, TouchTunes launched Mobile 4, the fourth and most ambitious version of its application.
This new generation of the platform aimed to fully rewrite the mobile app from scratch, modernizing the technical foundations while introducing new features designed to appeal to a younger audience.
To support this large-scale development effort, TouchTunes partnered with Sidekick Interactive to augment its internal mobile team with experienced iOS and Android developers.
The context
The previous version of the TouchTunes application had accumulated significant technical debt over time, making it increasingly difficult to maintain and evolve.
The Mobile 4 initiative aimed to solve these issues by rebuilding the platform using modern mobile architectures and technologies while scaling the development team to accelerate delivery.
Sidekick Interactive collaborated with TouchTunes in a team augmentation model, embedding developers directly within the client’s internal teams.
Challenges and technical constraints of a large-scale music platform
The challenge
The TouchTunes mobile platform relied on a very specific architecture model, requiring developers to quickly understand advanced patterns such as state-machine based architectures and modern mobile frameworks.
Because of this complexity, the learning curve for new developers was significantly higher than in typical mobile projects. Developers needed not only strong experience in Swift and Kotlin, but also the ability to quickly understand the architectural principles used across the codebase.
At the same time, TouchTunes needed to rapidly increase its development capacity to support the ambitious Mobile 4 rewrite.
Key challenges included:
Onboarding developers quickly despite a steep technical learning curve
Ensuring strong understanding of the architecture model and state-machine patterns
Integrating external developers seamlessly into existing multidisciplinary squads
Maintaining development velocity while scaling the engineering team
These conditions required highly experienced developers capable of becoming productive quickly in a complex technical environment.
Constraints
The project operated under several operational constraints:
Integration into existing engineering processes and squads
Coordination with multiple internal teams including product and leadership
Adoption of new mobile architectures and frameworks
Delivery within an ambitious product roadmap
These conditions required developers capable of quickly adapting to a complex and evolving technical environment.
Our approach and mobile development solution
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Integrating developers into product squads
Sidekick Interactive provided experienced iOS and Android developers who were embedded directly within TouchTunes’ Mobile 4 team.
Because the client relied on a highly specific architecture model, our team internally prepared and trained developers to ensure they could quickly adapt to the architectural requirements and development patterns used by TouchTunes.
Our developers were then integrated into multidisciplinary product squads, working alongside product managers, designers, and internal engineers. They contributed to feature development and actively supported the evolution of the new mobile platform.
To support the client’s rapid scaling needs, Sidekick Interactive also maintains an active pipeline of mobile developers through continuous recruiting and technical evaluation. This allows us to quickly bring in qualified developers when new needs arise.
At the peak of the engagement, eight Sidekick developers were actively contributing to the TouchTunes mobile application.
The new application was built using modern mobile technologies designed to ensure long-term maintainability and performance.
The architecture relied on:
- State Marc architecture patterns
- SwiftUI for iOS
- Jetpack Compose for Android
These technologies allowed the team to reduce technical debt and establish a more scalable and maintainable foundation for the future of the platform.
During the project, one of Sidekick Interactive’s co-founders stepped in to temporarily fill a critical gap left by the departure of the iOS development lead.
In this interim leadership role, he worked across multiple layers of the organization — from development teams to product management and executive leadership. He helped improve development velocity by tweaking the agility level and suggesting metrics that aligned incentives and trackables for developers.
Beyond technical contributions, he also played a key role in recruiting and onboarding his successor, ensuring continuity and a smooth transition.
Results and impact
The collaboration between TouchTunes and Sidekick Interactive enabled the company to successfully scale its mobile development capacity during a critical phase of its platform rebuild.
Key outcomes included
Successful integration of external developers within internal teams
Contributions to the development of the Mobile 4 application
Increased velocity of the development team, through more developers and improved developer management
Temporary leadership support during a critical staffing gap
Recruitment assistance for key mobile developer positions
As the project entered its maintenance phase, development responsibilities were gradually transitioned fully to the internal TouchTunes team.
Why this project matters
This project highlights Sidekick Interactive’s ability to support companies not only through technology expertise, but also through team augmentation and strategic talent support.
Our experience includes helping organizations:
Scale mobile development teams rapidly
Integrate external developers into internal squads
Recruit key technical roles
Ensure smooth transitions between external and internal teams
By combining technical expertise with recruitment and leadership support, Sidekick Interactive helps companies deliver complex digital products while building sustainable internal teams.
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