3x3: Speeding Up Mobile Releases
Article Summary
LinkedIn went from monthly releases to shipping mobile code 3x per day. Here's how they automated their way out of a month-long release cycle.
Drew Hannay shares how LinkedIn's mobile team built a fully automated release pipeline for their Project Voyager rebuild. Over 250 engineers needed a way to ship faster without sacrificing quality or waiting weeks for manual testing.
Key Takeaways
- 3x3 rule: Release 3x daily, code to production in under 3 hours
- Distributed builds across CI machines cut iOS build time by 4x
- Layout tests replaced manual localization reviews for UI bugs
- Feature flags let teams test internally before exposing to members
- Weekly automated promotions to App Store and Google Play
Critical Insight
LinkedIn eliminated their 4-day manual regression test and moved from 12 releases per year to continuous deployment for internal users, with weekly public releases.
