Ryan Stawarz & Austin Story: Inside Doximity’s 15-Year Rails Monolith

Aug 12, 2025

Ryan Stawarz and Austin Story, both Rails engineers at Doximity since 2016, share insights into their journey with Ruby on Rails and GraphQL. They discuss how Doximity evolved a monolithic Rails app to support over 100 engineers and millions of healthcare professionals. Key topics include the integration of GraphQL for mobile optimization, performance challenges, and the use of BatchLoader to handle data efficiently. They highlight the balance between GraphQL and REST, the evolution of front-end technologies, and emphasize a culture of trust to enhance team dynamics.

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INSIGHT

Rails As A Proven Path

Rails gives a proven, pragmatic path from prototype to large product while allowing targeted customization when needed.
Ryan Stawarz credits Rails for enabling fast iteration and long-term adaptability across teams.

INSIGHT

GraphQL To Unify Mobile And Web

Doximity adopted GraphQL to standardize API contracts and serve both Vue SPAs and native mobile clients.
Austin Story and Ryan Stawarz saw GraphQL as type safety and a single interface for diverse clients.

ADVICE

Use Batch Loading To Avoid N+1s

Avoid unexpected N+1s in GraphQL by using server-side batching loaders.
Ryan Stawarz recommends BatchLoader-style patterns to aggregate IDs and run fewer queries.

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In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Ryan Stawarz and Austin Story from Doximity, where Ruby on Rails has powered the core of their platform for over 15 years. The trio digs into how a single Rails monolith has evolved to support 100+ engineers and a mobile-first experience for millions of healthcare professionals. From front-end framework migrations to API architecture, they explore the real-world decisions required to keep a large Rails app resilient and fast-moving.

Ryan and Austin walk us through the team’s adoption of GraphQL, what led them to introduce GraphQL Federation, and how they balance speed with reliability when scaling APIs across domains. They talk about the tradeoffs of maintaining both GraphQL and REST, and how Doximity avoids N+1 query pitfalls using BatchLoader. The conversation also touches on the evolution of their front-end—from Backbone to Vue.js—and why Rails’ flexibility still gives them an edge.

Throughout the episode, they share pragmatic insights into debugging at scale, managing one-off data migrations, and determining when a service should live inside or outside the monolith. They also reflect on their use of tools like Packwerk, AnyCable, and Departure, and how a culture of trust, documentation, and lightweight planning helps Doximity move fast without breaking things.

🧰 Tools & Libraries Mentioned

- Ruby on Rails – The web framework powering Doximity’s monolith and many of their services.

- GraphQL-Ruby – Ruby gem for building GraphQL APIs in Rails.

- BatchLoader– Helps reduce N+1 queries in GraphQL.

- Vue.js – Their chosen frontend framework for building single-page applications.

- Packwerk – Helps enforce modular boundaries in their Rails monolith.

- Departure – Used for safe database migrations on large datasets.

- Thor – Used to run one-off CLI scripts with easier testability.

- rake-ui – Internal tool for triggering Rake tasks via a web UI.

- AnyCable – Go-based replacement for ActionCable to support realtime features at scale.

- Docker – Powers consistent local dev and containerized environments.

- Firebase – Used for push notifications in mobile apps.

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On Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails.

On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.