Falling in Love with Programming Again. Meet Tomek – iOS Developer

Tomek is a Senior iOS Developer with over 5 years of experience. His initial career, as a nuclear power engineer, guided him toward programming. Learn more about his approach to mobile development, and the iOS trends he observes. Also, find out how Tomek overcame job burnout that almost took away his passion for programming.

You studied Nuclear Power Engineering and Nuclear Physics. How did you end up becoming an iOS developer?

Tech gadgets have intrigued me since I was a child, especially phones & smartphones. For most of my teenage years, I was buying broken phones, fixing them, and re-selling them. I’ve always loved hardware. However boring Informatics classes in high school killed any possible passion for software. I didn’t even know there was a software developer career line. I had this stereotypical vision of a Computer Science student who ended up being this lonely guy living in their mother’s basement.

So I decided to study Nuclear Power Engineering at Warsaw University of Technology and Nuclear Physics at Warsaw University because I really enjoyed physics and math. These studies actually led me into programming anyway.

How come?

At my first full-time job, I had a chance to build a power plant simulator. I felt so limited because I didn’t have access to the source code. It was a constant struggle to work with logic blocks when you didn’t have access to the underlying algorithm. I tried to manage on my own, looking for reasons for problems. In the end, finding solutions felt super satisfying. I even wrote my first commercial application to improve power plant simulations. I was going deeper and deeper into programming.

What’s more, my two friends were programming in iOS. So I started to learn with them. We even developed an app for Warsaw University. At that time the entry threshold to iOS development was high because you had to buy expensive Apple devices. So more people chose Android development because they already had a computer with Windows or Linux to work on. That’s why we felt it might be easier to establish ourselves in iOS development because the competition would be lower.

Finally, I decided to focus completely on programming. I moved to Northern Poland to work as an iOS developer in a local company.

What do you like the most about iOS development?

People. Maybe I am just lucky, but I’ve always come across iOS developers who were true enthusiasts. I don’t say that it is possible only after choosing iOS development. ;) I must admit, though, that I’ve met so many iOS devs that really seem to love their job as much as I do. It’s great to have the possibility to share the same passion with others.

I also enjoy the fact that when you write a mobile app, you can quickly see the results of your work. Quick gratification is really powerful in this case. I can instantly see the UI that was born from my code.

Last but not least, I love gadgets. 😉 I enjoy writing apps for all devices Apple has to offer. Yes, I’ve been captivated by Apple’s world. That’s a side effect of my work that I quite appreciate.

How did you land in Bright Inventions?

Right before joining Bright Inventions I actually experienced a massive job burnout. I was during a very challenging career moment, under lots of pressure, dealing with hours of overtime. I was concerned that I had lost my passion for this job. I even thought about a career change. Eventually, I left my current job to figure out my next move.

I decided to stick to programming. I started to go through job offers and found Bright Inventions’ offer. It reminded me that my friend Kamil worked there. So I asked him basically if the job description was true. Not only did he confirm everything, but also painted an even more positive image of working at Bright Inventions.

Then I reached out to Ula and after going through the recruitment process I joined the company. So it was a bumpy road to Bright Inventions. Yet with a happy ending. I am glad to be here. This is the place where I got back my passion for software development.

So it turned out that your way to overcome burnout was actually finding a new job?

A new job with great people. The people you work with are key. You know well, how nice and friendly people are here. So it helped me get back on track.

If you had to start an iOS project from scratch, with no technological debt, what tools would you use?

There isn’t one simple answer to that question. It depends on the product I would build. If it is a solution for a large group of users with a spectrum of Apple devices, then you can’t choose only Swift UI. No matter how trendy it is right now.

Yet if the product targets a smaller group of tech-savvy users I would base it on Swift UI. Having in mind that it is still a young technology, you cannot cross off good old UIKit completely.

What I would try to do, no matter the type of product, is to avoid external libraries to eliminate dependencies. It’s better to have control of our code, as much as reasonably possible. I would first explore iOS system libraries and try to utilize them for our needs.

It’s also important to choose frameworks wisely. For example, don’t choose RxSwift or Combine when your development team is not familiar with reactive programming.

What trends do you observe in iOS development?

Great new technologies are here to discover such as Swift UI and generally high-level frameworks. They largely simplify our work and let us do advanced operations at a lower cost. On the one hand, it makes it easier to get into iOS development but at the same time, I feel that there is more stuff to comprehend. When I was starting my iOS adventure there weren’t so many things to learn.

Another trend is multiplatform apps. You can write code once and it will work (with a few alterations) on iPhones as well as iPads and Macs. You can even write an application for iPad on iPad.

Tell us more about projects you work on.

One of the projects is a food delivery application operating in Israel. This is not a typical food delivery app, it’s also a popular employee benefit. Companies use it to subsidize employees' lunches. It’s also a well-suited product for Israeli users due to this country's highly developed lunch culture.

Another project is a customizable workflow management solution that helps to work efficiently in international teams. It’s well-adjustable for various business groups: lawyers, hairdressers, banks, and many more. The product we help to build consists of many tools such as a calendar, reservations management, payments, chats, video calls, and other platforms useful for daily business operations.

I know you love to travel. Where have you been so far in 2023?

My wife planned a surprise birthday trip for me. We went to Wrocław. Another gift for me was joining the barista workshop there. The art of making coffee is one of my passions.

Also, we’ve just come back from Vietnam. We spent three weeks there. It was a totally new experience for me. It’s a very wild and friendly country at the same time.

We will see what other adventures this year brings…