Indiana DWD Modernizes Its Legacy Unemployment Insurance System

Introduction

March 13, 2020, was no typical Friday.

On that day, the United States declared COVID-19 a national emergency, sending shockwaves through the nation. By Monday, grocery shelves were empty, businesses faced existential threats, and millions of Americans found themselves unable to work. The U.S. government implemented pandemic assistance programs through state unemployment systems, leading to an unprecedented surge in claims.

By April, the U.S. unemployment rate had spiked to levels unseen since the Great Depression—an estimated 70 million workers were affected. Outdated state unemployment systems buckled under the pressure.

But things played out differently in Indiana.

The state’s unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.2% to 17.5%, the highest in its recorded history. Nearly 300,000 claims flooded the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (DWD). Thanks to some well-timed foresight and an exceptional team effort, they were prepared to respond.

Long before the pandemic, DWD had begun modernizing its system, adopting domain-driven design (DDD) and event-driven architecture to improve resilience. Their dedicated developers, testers, and business analysts worked tirelessly, deploying updates weekly to meet evolving demands. Software Engineer Wayne Hoskins reflected:

"Scaling up our applications was painful, but the team’s prior efforts in DDD and events made it possible.”

- Wayne Hoskins, Senior Software Engineer

The pandemic tested the limits of DWD’s system, and the team’s groundwork carried it through the surge. Next, DWD set out to build something that could do more than survive.

The Challenge: A Legacy Monolith Under Pressure

Before the pandemic, DWD relied on a monolithic unemployment insurance system—one of the only fully integrated state systems in the country. While this structure set Indiana apart from other states, it also posed challenges. The system managed everything from claims processing to court appeals, but its outdated coding practices created a breeding ground for inefficiencies.

“If one app wasn’t running, everything stopped,” Wayne explained. This fragility was one reason notice generation was prioritized for modernization. Running a large number of notices used to slow down or even bring down the IWF claims app, forcing the team to schedule processing outside business hours.

Deployments were another major pain point. The system’s tightly coupled architecture meant even minor changes required extensive analysis to prevent breaking other components. “It wasn’t just that deployments took six hours,” Wayne clarified. “It was the sheer amount of analysis needed before implementing a new feature, just to make sure we didn’t break something else.”

“The system handled the claims during the pandemic because of how well the entire team worked together," Andy said. "But it became clear we needed to do things better. The team had already started using DDD and events—we just needed a way to bring it all together.”

The Solution: Microservices and Event Sourcing

Recognizing the need for a more flexible and resilient architecture, DWD’s leadership, including Director Rick Bedel and Development Manager Scott O’Mara, championed the modernization effort. With support from management, Wayne and Andy led two key initiatives to prove the viability of a new architecture: Secure Document Upload and Notice Generation.

On June 23, 2022, DWD launched notice generation as a microservice. In the following month, the team deployed 16 updates to address integration challenges with the legacy monolith. Adopting a "Fix Forward" mentality instead of rolling back changes allowed them to adapt quickly. Since deployment, DWD has generated over 15.3 million notices using the new system.

DWD’s next breakthrough was moving notice generation from overnight batch jobs to an event-driven approach built on Axon.

“We can generate 100K+ notices throughout the day now instead of relying on overnight batch jobs. This change dramatically improved efficiency and resiliency.”

- Andy Whitaker, Software Engineer & Architect

The impact of Secure Document Upload was equally significant. In the first six months, DWD saw:

• A two-day improvement in first-time payment timeliness.

• Claimant issue resolution improved by three days.

• A 6% increase in quality across all determinations.

• 650 staff hours saved by the Imaging team.

With clearer, color documents available, follow-up requests to claimants were greatly reduced, further streamlining the claims process.

Technical Impact

• Scalability: While DWD still operates on its monolith, modernized components—Document Management, Notice Generation, and Workflow—have significantly improved scalability.

• Resilience & Speed: DWD can now deploy new updates and features rapidly. “Before Axon, we blocked out six hours for every deployment,” Andy said. “Now, I can deploy the entire stack in a couple of moments, and if something’s wrong, Kubernetes won’t deploy it. No disruption to the service.”

• Improved Workflow: Notice generation, once a resource-intensive bottleneck, now runs seamlessly. “No one notices it anymore,” Andy said. “It just works.”

Real-World Impact

• Pandemic Resilience: Unlike other states that saw their systems buckle, Indiana’s unemployment system stayed operational throughout the crisis.

• Faster payments: The shift to microservices helped DWD improve first-payment timeliness, with 75% of claims now meeting their targets.

• Automation Success: DWD has generated millions of notices without issue, significantly reducing manual intervention.

Axoniq’s Role: Supporting the Shift

For DWD, the best support was needing very little of it. “The best thing about Axon is that it just works,” Andy emphasized. The stability of Axon Framework and Axon Server meant minimal reliance on external support. When an issue arose—like a node temporarily losing its events—Andy resolved it in ten minutes using Axon’s reference guide.

Beyond the technology, Axoniq supported DWD with training and disaster recovery planning. “Axoniq helped us train our team, which made onboarding much easier,” Andy noted.

“We’ve built a system that’s not just surviving—it’s thriving. We’re ready for whatever comes next, and Axon has been a big part of that."

- Andy Whitaker, Senior Software Engineer & Architect

Conclusion

Indiana DWD’s legacy modernization shows that even deeply entrenched systems can evolve. With support from leadership and tools from Axoniq, the team built a scalable, resilient system that keeps unemployment benefits flowing.

That work earned recognition at the Governor’s Public Service Achievement Awards, and DWD’s participation in the Open UI Initiative is helping shape government legacy modernization beyond Indiana.

“We’re building something that other states can learn from.”

- Wayne Hoskins, Senior Software Engineer

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