Media Assembly is a fast-growing, modern media agency that provides brands with innovative media solutions powered by sophisticated planning and buying technologies. Headquartered in New York, with nearly 500 creative minds and advertising technologists in offices across the U.S., Media Assembly provides a new breed model that unlocks true value for clients. They are also a member of the MDC Partners family.

A modern work environment, powered by GitHub

While the technical team at Media Assembly is comprised of 20 engineers in one of the company’s four U.S. offices (with some work outsourced to Europe), the entire product organization has embraced the concept of asynchronous work. Engineers, Product Managers, Data Scientists, Analysts — even Designers use GitHub at Media Assembly. The company also uses GitHub as a communication tool between teams.

The idea to switch to GitHub originated with the Engineering team. Media Assembly wanted an online repository where we could share code versions seamlessly, but also ideas on how to improve the code, said Stella Voutsina, EVP of Digital Operations, Data, and Technology. We also wanted to observe online collaboration between Engineers and Data Scientists, to understand how using GitHub could improve their productivity.

Collaboration and creativity without sacrifices

Although the company was not using Git previously, the close connection to open source workflows made GitHub an appealing solution. We are pro-open source, and we like the concept of social sharing, Stella commented. Our mission is for Media Assembly to use GitHub for all teams — not just engineering.

The benefits of using GitHub extend beyond optimizing workflows with GitHub Flow. With asynchronous communication, collaboration happens in real time, allowing Media Assembly developers to build algorithms quickly without sacrificing innovation.

According to Stella, we want our people to collaborate, but also be proud of the work they produce. Coding is a creative process and we count on GitHub to provide the flexibility our team needs to be as innovative as possible.

Efficient production leaves more time for innovation

With a seamless and straightforward transition to GitHub, it wasn’t difficult to steer developers toward the new system — less time wasted on administration meant they had more time to work on Media Assembly’s main code base. Switching to GitHub has had other positive impacts on Media Assembly’s employees. We’ve become more careful and methodical in managing our code, Stella said. And I would add that we are more respectful of everybody’s input towards our product development process.

GitHub is a transformative tool for our business. It enables us to be faster and more effective within our engineering team, concluded Stella. Most importantly, GitHub helps us build products we could not build before.