"Burger King" has reduced the launch time of new features of the mobile application from months to weeks

2026: Optimizing backend infrastructure for mobile app

Burger King has completed a large-scale project to create a new backend infrastructure for the mobile application. In collaboration with ZeBrains, an architecture has been developed that allows you to launch new services and promo mechanics in weeks instead of months. Burger King announced this on February 16, 2026.

The existing mobile app backend has become a business bottleneck. The central system on outdated technologies did not physically allow the rapid launch of new promo mechanics and ordering scenarios for users. Any change affected several components at the same time, because of this, even point improvements turned into complex releases of a length of months.

At the same time, millions of users continued to work with the application every day - it was impossible to stop the system for modernization. Point improvements no longer solved the problem, a fundamentally new approach was required.

In collaboration with ZeBrains, Burger King designed an updated backend infrastructure based on independent services. The central system was divided into separate components: orders and shopping cart, catalog and restaurants, prices and configurations, payments, loyalty program, analytics. Each service received a clear area of ​ ​ responsibility and its own database.

The created architecture solves the main problem - changes in one service no longer require refinement of others. A critical requirement was safe migration without stopping the application. The developed solution made it possible to launch the parallel operation of the old and new mobile applications with the gradual transfer of users - first on internal employees, then by 1%, 5% and a wider audience with constant control of technical and business metrics.

The updated infrastructure creates the technological foundation for the development of the entire Burger King ecosystem. Moreover, the architecture of the mobile application lays down the possibility of 4x or more load growth as the system develops. The system increases the stability and stability of work due to the distributed architecture and fault-tolerant components, allows the business to implement ideas that were previously impossible technically, economically and in terms of business efficiency.

Burger King plans to complete the transition to an updated backend in March 2026. After that, the system will become a single technological platform for all sales channels of the company - a mobile application, self-service kiosks, drives and a website. The project demonstrates the successful experience of technological transformation in the restaurant business and confirms the effectiveness of cooperation between Russian companies in creating innovative solutions.

Burger King is largely a seasonal business: periods of peak demand are replaced by periods of calm. By 2024, we came to a situation where the audience volume became so high that even in calm periods the system worked at the upper limit of its capabilities. At peak loads, this led to failures in digital channels and a deterioration in user experience. Then it became obvious: with the current architecture, we could still support the system for some time, but further scaling of the business requires fundamental changes. A year later, we completely redesigned the architecture, dividing the monolith into microservices. Today we are confidently looking to the future in terms of load and system stability. An additional result was a significant acceleration in the withdrawal of new functions and services for users, "said Ilyas Domnin, CPO Burger King Russia.

When our client with a system for millions of users says "the system is working at the limit, but it cannot be stopped" - this is the very project and call that we are waiting for. We disassembled the monolith into independent services so that users did not even notice the transition. Now Burger King has why everything started - the opportunity to quickly try new things and not be afraid of the increase in load. And I am proud of our team, who invested their experience, knowledge and hard work in the project, - said Ramil Zaineev, CEO and co-founder of the IT company ZeBrains.