/diy/ - Do It Yourself

First time on this board, please help a newfag out.
I'm developing a "programmable relay" based on the ESP32 for a college project, which should be controlled through MQTT messages from a web application with a few built in functions (analog read, counters, etc).
The problem is that we decided to change from the Arduino IDE to the ESP-IDF while none of us has a real microcontroller programming background, so we're spending most of our time learning how to use it instead of actually programming stuff, and probably committing a lot of basic mistakes, which is delaying the project a lot.
The firmware isn't really too complex (basically just programming the functions, MQTT connections to send and receive messages through the appropriate topics and interfaces with a few peripherals on the board), but it's supposed to go in a commercial product.
Do you guys think we should just go back to Arduino code and work with it (which could lead into sloppier code, but will probably be doable on time) or soldier on with the IDF (and potentially miss deadlines due to what I mentioned)? I like the IDF, but it doesn't seem like it was wise to use it for this project.
We need to do a small showcase with it by the end of the month.