Association Management System Modernization
Cleveroad joined Parthenon Management Group as a dedicated engineering extension, modernizing their Pillar association management platform by refactoring the legacy core and shipping new modules without downtime.
Industry
Business automation
Team
4 members
Started in
2024
Country
USA
35%
lower cost than building an equivalent in-house team
9
core platform modules maintained and extended
2
weeks to onboard a team of 4 into active development
About Our Client
Parthenon Management Group is a US-based association management company founded in 2008. It supports scientific and research societies with virtual, hybrid, and in-person conferences and full operational management. The company currently serves 19 international scientific and research organizations and holds the AMCI Excellence in AMC Client Advancement Award.
Parthenon operates a custom-built Association Management System (AMS) called Pillar that supports core operational workflows across multiple scientific associations.
Client’s Business Goals
Parthenon's business kept scaling. The client base running on Pillar kept growing, customization requests from individual societies kept arriving, and the platform needed to absorb that growth without slowing down. The in-house engineering team handled new feature requests, but the previous external vendor couldn't keep pace with the volume of changes. Releases slipped, customization tickets stretched from days into weeks, and architecture work wasn't getting done.
Parthenon turned to Cleveroad to reinforce its in-house web development team with experienced engineers who could integrate into active development, take ownership of architecture work, and keep release velocity steady as the platform expanded. To accelerate platform evolution without expanding internal recruitment processes, the client chose a dedicated engineering team model that allowed them to:
Quickly onboard an engineering team into an active brownfield environment without an internal recruitment cycle
Refactor the legacy core and ship new modules in parallel, without pausing release cycles
Add new platform modules as individual societies requested customization
Run a flexible long-term collaboration with Parthenon keeping full control over priorities, workflows, and release management
Key Challenges of Legacy AMS Modernization
Pillar is a tightly coupled legacy system with society-specific business logic running across its modules. New engineers had to ramp into that complexity quickly because multiple client societies depended on the platform every day. Refactoring work, new feature delivery, and conference operations all had to run in parallel without any downtime.
Compliance scope stayed wide throughout the work. Pillar processes payments and stores member data across multiple scientific associations, so PCI DSS 4.0.1, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and CCPA/CPRA obligations had to remain fully supported through every refactor, architectural change, and module release.
Cooperation Process and Outcomes
The engagement ran in two stages: a rapid onboarding phase that brought a dedicated team into Parthenon's active development environment, followed by ongoing modernization and module delivery on the Pillar AMS. Neither stage required downtime, the platform served all client organizations throughout.
Staffing and Onboarding
Parthenon needed to reinforce its in-house web development team after the previous external vendor couldn't keep pace with the volume of customization requests coming in from individual societies. Releases were slipping, and the architecture work that should have been running alongside feature delivery wasn't happening.
Cleveroad delivered the first matching candidate profiles within 24 hours of the strategy call. The team composition was confirmed within the first week, and engineers began contributing to active development without an internal recruitment cycle on Parthenon's side. Pillar's modernization work continued uninterrupted through the onboarding period.
By the end of the onboarding phase, the dedicated team was integrated into Parthenon's release cadence, working directly against the live AMS codebase alongside the client's in-house engineers. Refactoring work and new feature delivery were running in parallel from the second week of the engagement.
Team composition and ownership:
- 2 Full-stack developers
- 1 Back-end developer
- 1 Project manager
- Direct collaboration with Parthenon's in-house engineers
- Product priorities owned by the client
Development in Detail
Development focused on modernizing the legacy Pillar codebase while extending the platform with new society-specific functionality. The work ran in three concurrent streams: refactoring the legacy core, building new modules, and rebuilding the delivery pipeline. All three streams shared the same constraint of zero downtime for client societies running live operations.
- The first task was to modernize the legacy core without disrupting live operations. Pillar's modules were tightly coupled, and the platform couldn't pause for refactoring. The team peeled functionality out of the legacy core in small increments, ran database changes through zero-downtime migration patterns, and shipped each step in a way that kept old and new code paths valid in parallel. Conference workflows, payments, and member operations remained live across all releases.
- Next, the team extended the platform with new modules for society-specific operations. Five core modules were rebuilt and extended over the engagement: certification and CE-credit tracking, billing and payment reconciliation, dynamic content and file management, a configurable workflow engine that each society adapts to its own business processes, and admin tooling that lets Parthenon staff support member-facing issues across multiple associations.
- Finally, the delivery infrastructure was rebuilt to support ongoing release velocity. CI/CD pipelines replaced manual deploys, test-driven development became standard for new module work, and API-first integration patterns let new functionality plug into the core without blocking existing request paths. The result is a delivery setup that supports continued module work without slowing release cadence, even as the team and feature set keep growing.
Technology stack
Cleveroad assembled a dedicated team with expertise matched to the platform's existing stack.
Web Architecture
Frontend
React
Type Script
Backend
Node JS
PostgreSQL
Mobile Architecture
Cross-platform
React Native
Infrastructure
AWS
Docker
Terraform
CI/CD
GitHub Actions
Business Outcomes for Our Client
Engineering capacity scaled fast
Internal hiring would have 1-2 months from job posting to a productive engineer. Cleveroad's matching profiles arrived in 24 hours, and the team was productive within two weeks. Active development never paused. A mobile engineer joined later, and the collaboration continues into its second year.
The platform stayed live through every change
The team refactored legacy architecture and shipped new modules without interrupting the platform or scheduling downtime windows. Conference operations, payments, and administrative workflows kept running for every association throughout the work, with no disruption for end users.
Compliance scope stayed contained and new associations onboarded
Payment and member data workflows comply with PCI DSS 4.0.1, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and CCPA/CPRA. The team kept new modules isolated from the legacy core,so each release could be validated against the compliance scope without disturbing financial or member workflows.
New associations were onboarded as the platform was modernized
While the engineering team refactored legacy code and shipped new modules, Parthenon continued bringing new scientific associations onto Pillar. The platform absorbed that growth without disruption to the societies already running on it or onboarding complexities.
Our Clients Say
USAPresident and CEO of Parthenon Management Group
“We are impressed with Cleveroad’s responsiveness, skillful team, and high-quality delivery. Their proactive approach and smooth communication ensured seamless project execution.”