When you need a second opinion on your iOS code
An architecture review is cheap compared with building a year of features on the wrong foundation. Teams usually ask for one when:
- You are about to scale the app or the team and want to know the codebase can take it.
- Velocity has dropped, and nobody can say exactly why each feature takes longer than the last.
- You are buying, inheriting or funding an app and need an independent view of its technical health.
- Your developers disagree on direction (SwiftUI or UIKit, how to modularize, how to handle concurrency) and you need someone senior to make the call.
- You have no senior iOS person in-house, and a non-iOS CTO or backend lead is making iOS decisions alone.
What an architecture review covers
I read the code, build it, run it, and talk to the people who work on it. Then I look at:
| Area | Questions I answer |
|---|---|
| Structure | Are responsibilities separated? Can parts be tested and changed independently? |
| Modularity | Would Swift packages speed up builds and clarify ownership? |
| Concurrency | Is async code safe, or are there data races waiting to happen? |
| Data and sync | Is storage (Core Data, SwiftData, SQLite, CloudKit) a good fit and used correctly? |
| UI layer | Is the SwiftUI or UIKit code maintainable, accessible and performant? |
| Quality | Are tests covering the risky parts? Is CI catching problems before users do? |
| Release | Can the team ship reliably, and how long does a release really take? |
You get a written report in plain language: what is good, what is risky, and what to do in what order. Then we walk through it together with your team so the recommendations are understood, challenged where needed, and owned by the people who will carry them out.
Fractional tech lead: ongoing senior support
Some teams need more than a one-time report. As a part-time tech lead I can:
- Own architecture decisions and write them down so they outlive any one developer.
- Review pull requests with comments that teach, not just block.
- Set engineering standards: code style, module boundaries, testing expectations, release process.
- Mentor developers, from juniors learning Swift to mid-level engineers growing into seniors.
- Advise backend teams on API design that works well for mobile clients.
- Collaborate with product and design on what is easy, what is hard, and what is worth the cost.
The amount of time involved depends on your team and goals, and we agree it before starting.
My background as a tech lead
I have almost 15 years of experience building for Apple platforms on large commercial products, with apps shipped in telecom, logistics, social networks, health and fitness, and CRM. As a tech lead I have owned architecture, set engineering standards, mentored developers, advised backend teams and run code review.
I also sustained weekly releases for years as a lead iOS developer. That rhythm is only possible with sound architecture, solid CI and disciplined review, so the advice I give comes from having had to make it work, not from theory. I also led a Flutter build from early stage to first release, which helps when you are weighing native against cross-platform.
My own apps are public proof of how I structure code today. Haptic Forge shares one SwiftUI codebase across iPhone, iPad and Mac (see SwiftUI multiplatform), and Fokus Zone is built on Apple’s Screen Time framework with geofencing and scheduling.
How reviews and tech lead work start
- You email me with a short description of the app, the team and what prompted the request.
- A short call or email exchange to agree what you want out of it: a one-off review, ongoing support, or a review that leads into hands-on rescue work.
- Access. Read access to the repository and, ideally, crash and analytics dashboards.
- Scope and price agreed up front, based on codebase size and how involved you want me to be.
What I will not do
I will not hand you a generic best-practices checklist, or recommend a rewrite because the code is not written the way I would write it. Recommendations are tied to your business goals and ranked by impact, so your team can act on the first few and see the benefit.
Next step
Write to contact@hobbysoft.pro with a few lines about your app and team. If you are an agency that needs senior iOS oversight across client projects, see how I work with agencies.
