Golang, Go! How Colorado Companies Are Using the Language to Win

by Alton Zenon III
August 30, 2019

Created less than a decade ago, Golang, or Go, is already the foundation for a number of products and processes that fuel growth at tech companies around the world because of its adaptability and simplicity. According to Github, some U.S. companies that use the language include American Express, Dell, eBay, Netflix, Lyft, Mastercard and Nike. 

And two more companies, hailing from the mountains of Colorado, can be added to that list. We spoke to them about some of the awesome things they’re doing with Go and what prompted them to use it. 

 

Jumpcloud's team chatting at social event

JumpCloud’s Software Engineering Manager Julio Santana said the company moved to Go to make work across multiple operating systems easier, specifically to support its hallmark Directory-as-a-Service® platform. Since then, Go has been used to develop a number of additional systems for the company.

 

What is the coolest software program you’re building using Go, and how will this project impact your company?

JumpCloud’s core offering is an authoritative cloud-based directory service, and the tools and services that support that are written in Golang. This project is critical to our customers’, and by extension, our success. Our directory service allows JumpCloud identities to securely and seamlessly connect employees of organizations to the resources they need to be able to do their jobs. Additionally, we manage workstations across Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems with an agent developed in Go.
 

We manage workstations across Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems with an agent developed in Go.”


How did you choose Go as the best language for this project?

We were looking for a language that would allow us to cross-compile software across operating systems, and looking to move away from JavaScript for back-end development. Golang seemed like a reasonable choice since we were also looking towards a service-oriented architecture. Now, many of our new microservices are written in Go.

 

Choozle team outdoors

For Choozle Developer Ruchi Malik, the methodology behind why her team picked up Go was simple: They wanted something that was quick and easy to use. And ease of use is important when doing something as complex as, say, restructuring all of your back end or scaling the entire company.

 

What is the coolest software program you’re building using Go, and how will this project impact your company?

We’re actually rebuilding our entire back end in Go. We are using it to build microservices that are specific to our business needs, like advertising, authentication and creatives. Each of these services is loosely coupled, independently deployable and manageable. Plus, Go makes it very easy to scale as a company. This is very important because, as our engineering team grows, each service can be managed by a different unit.
 

We knew we wanted a language that would be fast, simple, maintainable and easy to learn.”


How did you choose Go as the best language for this project?

As a team, we did a lot of research to find the best language for our business needs. Go ended up winning due to many of its awesome features. We knew we wanted a language that would be fast, simple, maintainable and easy to learn. Go checked all those boxes with its support for concurrency, built-in testing, profiling framework and easy and clear documentation. All of this made it very approachable for the entire team to commit to learning Go for our application re-build.

 

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