Helping Build the Tezos Ecosystem: Getting to know ECAD Labs

The past few years have been a time of massive progress and growth for the Tezos ecosystem. With 12 significant protocol upgrades already voted on, adopted, and implemented by the Tezos community (with a 13th on the way), over 95 million total contract operations completed in the last 12 months, and a scaling goal of 1 million transactions per second currently in the Tezos developer crosshairs, it’s easy to understand why Tezos is considered by many to be THE dark horse candidate to establish itself as a global leader in the exciting world of blockchain technology.

Source: Stats & Facts | Tezos

With some of the most dynamic and capable blockchain development teams in the entire industry focusing their considerable energies to the cause of moving the Tezos ecosystem forward and scaling Tezos for the Web 3.0 revolution to come, the future of the Tezos ecosystem has never looked brighter.

One of the key development teams working to advance the Tezos ecosystem is the amazing team at ECAD Labs. Important players in the Tezos development space since the earliest days of Tezos, ECAD Labs has launched numerous Tezos-focused tools like private key protection software Signatory and developer tools, like Taquito, and Taqueria. Its mission to make developing on Tezos as smooth and streamlined as possible is an extremely important one for the overall health and robust growth of the Tezos ecosystem as a whole.

With Web 3.0 tools and applications being rolled out and developer activity ramping up across the blockchain industry, the products and tools being built out by the ECAD Labs team offer an important window into what makes the Tezos ecosystem an appealing landing spot for the most talented developmental minds in the blockchain game. That’s why I thought it would be worthwhile to sit down with one of ECAD Labs’ most important players to learn more about this fabulous team and what they’re doing to forward the Tezos cause in 2023 and beyond.

So, that’s exactly what I did…

A Chat with Inna Stetsiak, Chief Product Officer, ECAD Labs #

How did you become involved with ECAD Labs and the Tezos ecosystem?

Several years ago, my colleague introduced me to Jev Björsell, our CEO. Though I had a general understanding of the blockchains, that was the first time I’d heard about Tezos and ECAD Labs. Open-source development sounded very interesting too, so I have jumped on board.

What is ECAD’s role in the Tezos ecosystem?

ECAD Labs is known for its popular library Taquito, which is used by most of the dApps in our ecosystem use. Taquito is a TypeScript library that makes development on Tezos faster and easier. ECAD Labs’ professional team always keeps up with new protocols and features, provides feedback to core teams in the ecosystem early, and has great documentation and support. Since launching Taquito, we have built more products and been very closely involved in the Tezos ecosystem, whether by creating a shared context with other teams or collaborating on new developments.

How does ECAD Labs approach product development?

That’s a great question! Our teams keep the focus on our users first and foremost. We are here to create a pleasant user experience by helping users to achieve their goals.

While the requests come from different directions (user interviews, user feedback from the website or the survey, issues in GitHub, comments and questions in social media channels, and direct messages), our goal is to look at our products holistically and shape them in a way that will work for the most of our users. Analyzing and systematizing data and feedback, digging into the root cause of the problems, and identifying underlying user problems help us to stay on course and not just react to every request and become a feature factory.

Once we identify user problems, we collaborate to come up with several alternative solutions and select the best ones. Sometimes teams do short, targeted experiments to check the details and help our decision-making. Once the solution is clear, we implement it. ECAD Labs follows the best industry practices with regard to our development process. For example, code itself, unit tests and integration tests, code reviews, product documentation, and release notes are created to complete the feature. And that is when the feature is considered fully complete. At the same time, we are also planning the scope of our releases that may include certain features based on priority.

Our teams do kanban, scrum, or its combination, but the overarching planning and prioritization are very similar. On the process level, teams do frequent sync-ups (so-called ‘stand-ups’) and less frequent planning, estimation, and retrospective sessions. This process helps us to keep delivering the best quality products.

What development priorities is the ECAD Labs team currently focused on?

We are currently working on compatibility with the upcoming Mumbai upgrade so that Tezos builders can migrate their dApps safely and in time before the transition. Stay tuned for that! As usual, we will provide the pre-release several weeks before the transition and the final release once the protocol transitions to the Adoption stage and it is clear it is a ‘Go.’

Also, coming right after will be WalletConnect2 support! We are grateful to work closely with WalletConnect and our Tezos wallet teams on this initiative.

While researching for this post, I learned that you are an experienced competitive West Coast Swing dancer and also a DJ, which is all very, very cool. Why didn’t I know this about you?

Well, I don’t know how you found out! It’s not a secret, though.

I dance and DJ for fun to keep me moving when I am not at my desk. WCS is an improvisational dance that consistently challenges me in a good way since it is an adaptive conversation between the partners where each can take turns talking. I also enjoy skate skiing in the winter here in Vancouver and spending time with my family.

When we last touched base, you expressed a fair measure of positivity about the Tezos ecosystem’s quest to reach 1 million TPS. What does this benchmark represent for the ongoing growth of our ecosystem?

Delivering such a high level of scalability is an amazing opportunity for Tezos to distinguish itself from the competition. We have seen 1.000 TPS, 6.000 TPS, 10.000 TPS, 65.000 TPS, and promises of 100.000 TPS. Not only will Tezos support Layer 2, but it will also outperform all other blockchains! Very exciting indeed!

I understand that your team is the driving force behind Vancouver, Canada’s infamous Tezos & Tacos meetups. Can you tell us why organizing these meetups has been a priority for the ECAD Labs team? And, while you’re at it, when is the next one?

We want people to learn more about Tezos, blockchain in general, and ECAD Labs! The next one is on April 12. See you there!

What’s next for ECAD Labs ? Are any exciting events or announcements in the works?

We are working on Layer 2 and WalletConnect2 support. We are excited to see what our users build!

With Tezos’ 13th protocol upgrade “Mumbai” almost ready to be adopted and rolled out in the Tezos ecosystem, the ongoing efforts of people like Inna Stetsiak and the fabulous team at ECAD Labs are becoming more crucial to the overall health of the Tezos ecosystem by the day.

And, as the Tezos ecosystem and the amazing community behind it march on toward the Web 3.0-powered future to come, it’s good to know that the infrastructure supporting our ecosystem’s efforts are in such stable and capable hands!