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Client Overview

Western Growers is a member-driven organization that provides advocacy, insurance services, and health benefits administration to agricultural businesses and their employees across the western United States.
Client Overview
Irvine, CA (headquarters), with additional locations in California, Arizona, and Washington

Location

Agriculture and Health Benefits Administration

Industry Impact

Since October 2025

Partnership

Launch-ready platform designed to support a 200,000-user roadmap

Results Impact

The Challenge

What was the problem?

Western Growers relied on four legacy portals that needed to be revamped to adjust to a changing environment that requires a top-notch user experience. They needed the ability to modernize benefits services and continue to scale efficiently.

How we approached it!

We began consolidating the legacy portals into one Customer Engagement Platform, with 3 of the 4 portals planned for the first release, aligned with the rollout of Western Growers’ new Core Administration Processing System to reduce migration risk.

The Solution

Stack Builders is consolidating four legacy portals (PERC, WERC, OPIS, HealthView) into one secure, cloud-based platform for members, employers, providers, and internal teams. The Customer Engagement Platform gives each audience tailored permissions and workflows on a shared system of record. Built around HIPAA requirements, it creates a modern digital entry point for Western Growers' benefits services, enabling phased growth without disrupting customers.

Multi-Portal Platform

One platform gives members, employers, brokers, providers, and admins tailored portals, permissions, and workflows.

Benchmark-Driven UX Design

Figma designs used proven patterns from leading insurance and benefits platforms to create more intuitive workflows.

Built-In HIPAA-Grade Security Controls

Built-in controls include tenant isolation, encrypted health data, MFA, and audit trails for sensitive actions.

Handle-Based Authentication & JWT Scoping

Unique usernames let one person manage multiple roles while maintaining access beyond a work email.

Our Tool Stack

Django REST backend

Repository-Service-View pattern

React 19/TypeScript frontend split

Our Approach

A Decision-First Blueprint Every foundational choice — cloud, security, multi-tenancy, auth — is captured in dated Architecture Decision Records: a transparent, auditable blueprint that evolved with the platform.
Compliance by Design HIPAA compliance was built-in from day one: defense-in-depth security, database-level tenant isolation, private networking, and audit logging were planned before the first feature shipped.
AI-Assisted Delivery, Engineered Engineered AI-assisted delivery with humans in the loop: a codified DoD, AI-refined requirements, an adversarial AI reviewer as a blocking gate, every change approved by engineers.
Phased Migration, De-Risked Four legacy portals were mapped to one multi-portal platform, delivered in tracer-bullet vertical slices and phased alongside dual operations — de-risking migration for live insurance customers.

Results & Impact

Our team advanced the Customer Engagement Platform from an empty repository to a launch-ready foundation in less than six months. Disciplined engineering practices and automated quality controls helped the team maintain strong delivery momentum while preparing the platform for phased expansion.

4 → 1 Platform Four legacy portals unified into one HIPAA-compliant platform, built for a 200,000-user roadmap.
691 PRs Created +421 new Jira tickets shipped in six months, averaging 77 gated PRs per month.
~7,500 Tests Backed by a 90% code coverage bar enforced in CI, with a nearly 1:1 test-to-code ratio.
58 New Screens A ground-up UI redesign across three portals, supported by a 130+ component design system.

Real Impact, Real Growth

The team is doing a great job throughout the entire software development lifecycle.

Mark Middleton

Director of Software Engineering

Looking Forward

The first release will introduce an end-to-end experience for members and employers, integrated with Western Growers’ new system of record. Launching initially with a focused set of capabilities will allow the team to validate the platform with a real client before expanding it more broadly.

Feedback from members and administrators will inform subsequent releases across 15 functional areas. During the planned transition period, legacy portals will continue operating alongside the new platform to protect continuity for the people who rely on Western Growers’ benefits services.

Stack Builders and Western Growers will continue working through product discovery and delivery together, building on an architecture designed for future scale and a disciplined development approach that helps a lean team maintain quality as the platform grows.

Ready to unify your legacy systems? Discuss your modernization initiative by booking a call: