9. Aaron High - Rebuilding the Platform That Powers Graduation

Aaron High, Director of Engineering at Tassel, joins host Chase Rigby for a behind-the-scenes look at the massive tech overhaul powering Tassel’s future. Together, they dive into the why, what, and how of rewriting a 20-year-old legacy codebase while still serving millions of students—and what that means for the future of commencement.

📝 Topics Discussed:

What “technical debt” really means—and why Tassel had so much of it.

The decision to completely rebuild Tassel’s core architecture from the ground up.

How the engineering team is scaling quickly while improving performance and reliability.

Releasing in “bite-sized” pieces using the Strangler Fig approach.

The real student impact of faster, more reliable graduation tech.

How customer feedback directly shapes the roadmap and product priorities.

The vision behind the new graduate-facing experience and what’s next.

📌 Episode Highlights:

[00:07:33] Why Tassel needed a full rebuild—and what made that decision necessary.
[00:10:20] Aaron explains “technical debt” in plain terms and how it affects scale.
[00:13:16] Legacy issues: Repetitive code, hardcoded integrations, and brittle foundations.
[00:15:01] Why big-bang releases are out—and incremental rollouts are in.
[00:22:51] How Tassel is renovating the platform while still “living in the house.”
[00:27:06] A deep dive into the brand-new graduate site: faster, accessible, extensible.
[00:29:03] Performance wins: Dropping common operations from 2–3 seconds to 75ms.
[00:32:51] How customer-driven roadmaps are leading to faster, more meaningful releases.
[00:33:50] The human side of software—why every log line represents a real student.

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This episode of The Liminal is brought to you by Tassel – transforming the way the world celebrates graduations. From AI-powered name pronunciation to seamless ticketing, stage displays, and post-event analytics, Tassel is your all-in-one platform for modern, inclusive commencements.

Join the movement to make every graduation memorable for students, families, and administrators alike.

Visit tassel.com to learn more and see how we’re redefining the future of commencements.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heytassel.substack.com