hey, I’m alex.

I build top-notch products for macOS, iOS and the web.

I’m a multidisciplinary software engineer with 10+ years of experience building apps for macOS, iOS and the web. I’ve worked for the biggest tech giants to the smallest startups and everything in-between.

LlamaChat

I built and open-sourced this Messages-style app which lets you chat with your favourite LLaMA LLMs on macOS.

GitHub

Website

Meta/Spark Studio

I was one of the founding members of Meta’s Spark AR team, and worked on Spark Studio — the app for creating AR effects for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Website

Picnic

I worked with seed-stage startup Picnic to build out features and server-side components for their React Native app.

Website

Raycast

I worked with the Raycast team to build out some of the initial flows and product infrastructure in early versions of the app.

Website

Hire me to

Build your new app or website

Contact Me

As a full-stack engineer, I can build your new app or website out for you end-to-end — or focus on just the components that you need — from ideation, to development and finally, launch.

Even if you haven’t got a clear sense of what exactly your app is or where it’s headed, I can help you quickly prototype and iterate on key flows and components to help you determine next steps.

Improve your existing product

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I can help you to develop and/or build new products or features into your existing app, through all stages of the development process.

My skillset includes Objective-C/Objective-C++ and AppKit/UIKit, so I can help you to refactor or modernise older components or codebases, and introduce newer technologies and languages like Swift and SwiftUI to your projects.

Audit your existing code or app architecture

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If you already have an app or product that someone else has built or is building for you, I can perform architecture and/or code audits to help you to understand whether what has already been done is right for your company and product’s size and stage, and whether any adjustments need to be made to your implementation strategy.

Provide advisory services

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I’ve worked with teams big and small, from one or two-person startups to large teams shipping products to millions of people globally.

If you’re in the early stages of developing or building your product, I can help you clarify and shape its direction and design, and advise you on technical and implementation decisions. If your product is already established, I can help you with furthertechnical decisions and product direction.

Why hire me?

My focus is always on the end product, and I love to sweat the details. At the same time I will build what’s right for you, right now.

Crafted for People

I love to build things which are user-friendly, useful, and delightful.

Pragmatic Tradeoffs

I’m pragmatic about engineering and product decisions. With extensive experience with technlogies like AppKit, UIKit, SwiftUI and React, I can always choose the right tools for the job.

Technical Excellence

I build software in a way that is robust and type-safe with clean APIs which make it easier to maintain later.

Cross-Discipline Collaboration

I work well with design and product functions in your company, and have strong product and design sensibilities myself.

Some of the companies I’ve worked with and for include

Alex is an expert in his field, possessing a rare ability to do exceptionally well on both the technical and product sides. You can be sure of receiving a high-quality result, delivered on time with perfect communication.

Petr Nikolaev

CTO, Raycast

Products I’ve built

LlamaChat

SwiftUI
AppKit
TypeScript

LlamaChat is an open-source macOS app that allows you to chat with your favourite LLaMA LLM models in a clean, Messages-style interface. It’s built almost exclusively using SwiftUI, with a sprinkling of AppKit to improve some of the polish and functionality in the app.

I did all of the original development, design and creative direction on the project, as well as designing and building the accompanying website, llamachat.app.

Meta Spark Studio

Objective-C
Swift
C++

I was one of the founding members of Meta Spark, Meta’s AR effects platform. I worked on Spark AR Studio (now Meta Spark Studio), a native macOS (and then cross-platform) app which allows creators to design augmented-reality effects for Meta’s AR surfaces including Instagram and Facebook.

As one of the founding team members I built various core components and infrastructure in the app, and was later one of the tech leads on the project when we rebuilt the app in C++ and Qt.

Alex is an exceptional problem solver. He has the ability not only to develop complex products, but also has a strong sense of design and product. This rare combination of skills makes him an absolute pleasure to work with.

Stef Smet

Ex-Principal Product Designer

Instagram

Let’s chat

If you’re ready to discuss what you want to work on together, or just want to find out more about how I can help you and your product, get in touch.

Contact Me

You can also find me around the web