Scaling Music Education at Forte

Overview

Forte is a leading platform connecting music students and teachers through a personalized matching system and seamless lesson experience. The platform powers high-quality remote instruction using proprietary Pure Audio technology, enabling clear, uncompressed sound tailored for music education.

My Role

As Director of Engineering (Dec 2022–Present), I led Forte's technical team through multiple product evolutions while remaining deeply hands-on with the codebase every day. In addition to guiding architectural decisions, scaling infrastructure, and mentoring engineers, I actively contributed code across all parts of the stack. I delivered product features that directly impacted thousands of users and oversaw the implementation of critical systems—scheduling, payments, subscriptions, and teacher discovery—ensuring performance, maintainability, and business alignment.

I was responsible for:

  • Designing and deploying scalable, secure web services and infrastructure
  • Architecting and leading the rebuild of core systems including scheduling, video lessons, and payments
  • Collaborating cross-functionally with design, product, and leadership to prioritize features and roadmap
  • Leading rapid prototyping efforts to test hypotheses and validate features before investment
  • Mentoring engineers and managing contractors in a fully remote environment

Key Technologies

  • Frontend: React, Next.js, TypeScript
  • Backend: Node.js, GraphQL, Prisma, PostgreSQL
  • Infrastructure: AWS, Vercel, Retool, Stripe, Daily.co, Twilio
  • Tooling & Monitoring: Datadog, Metabase, Contentful, GitHub Actions, Figma

Selected Contributions

📆 Scheduling & Matching

  • Architected an intelligent calendar system that adapts to timezone changes, daylight saving edge cases, and global users
  • Built student-teacher matching flows that process tens of thousands of preferences and deliver sub-second results
  • Integrated trial-to-ongoing lesson scheduling with in-app follow-up and notifications

💳 Payments & Subscriptions

  • Developed a robust, idempotent payments pipeline using Stripe
  • Designed flexible lesson pricing, bundles, and revenue-splitting tools for independent and marketplace teachers
  • Built a conflict-free subscription state machine to ensure reliability during high-volume transitions

🛠 Admin Tools & Ops

  • Integrated Slack and Retool to streamline internal operations and user support
  • Built dashboards for content approval, user management, partner reporting, and billing reconciliation
  • Empowered small support teams to operate efficiently at scale

📈 Analytics & Product Insight

  • Set up real-time metrics with Metabase for feature usage and operational monitoring
  • Collaborated with product teams on A/B testing infrastructure and KPI tracking
  • Delivered reports to leadership guiding investment decisions

Impact

  • Scaled platform to support 39,000+ active users and 41+ instruments
  • Maintained 99.9% uptime during growth phases
  • Reduced lesson no-shows and scheduling friction through automation
  • Enabled faster product iteration through rapid prototyping and clear technical leadership

This case study highlights my work as a hands-on engineering leader, architect, and product-minded builder. My focus on operational excellence, user experience, and scalable systems has been instrumental in Forte's growth and success in the music education industry.

will@willjustice.dev