About this site
Most software fails in boring ways.
Not because the team can’t build a list view—because reality shows up:
- networks that drop
- async work that races
- requirements that shift mid-sprint
- features shipped behind flags
- migrations that can’t break existing users
- “impossible” bugs that only happen in production
This site is where I write about building mobile systems and architecture that survive reality—the kind of engineering that keeps working when the happy path ends.
What you’ll find here
I focus on topics that show up repeatedly in real products:
- State and flow control (state machines, orchestration, navigation as process)
- Offline-first and synchronization (caching, retries, conflict handling, versioning)
- Swift concurrency in production (cancellation, task lifetimes, race prevention)
- Pragmatic architecture (boundaries, test seams, scaling without over-frameworking)
- Shipping safely (feature flags, observability, migrations, rollback thinking)
The goal is not to collect patterns. It’s to compress hard-earned lessons into clear decision frameworks you can apply under time pressure.
How I think about engineering
A few principles I come back to:
- Make state explicit. Hidden state is where bugs breed.
- Separate decisions from effects. Deterministic logic first; I/O and side-effects second.
- Design for failure paths. Reliability is a feature, not an afterthought.
- Keep architecture earned, not invented. Add structure when complexity demands it.
- Prefer systems that are testable by construction. If it’s hard to test, it’s usually hard to trust.
Who this is for
If you build iOS apps (or mobile systems in general) and you care about:
- correctness under concurrency
- stability under change
- shipping fast without shipping chaos
…then you’re the intended reader.
About me
I’m Aylwing Olivas, a senior iOS engineer and technologist. I’ve worked across large organizations and high-traffic products, and I care deeply about building software that’s resilient, maintainable, and practical.