Conversation

Replying to
Unfortunately, mobile developers have these expectations from PMs, their backend counterparts, and engineering leaders.
1
12
Mobile analytics I have had cases where non-mobile engineers have come to me and said, "We can find out what type of analytics this feature has once the feature is implemented." No, that's not a great idea.
1
10
Mobile developers have to make sure the relevant state, data, and values are available and accessible to the screen, button listener, etc.; when an analytical event wants a field, it has to be carried through multiple hops, injected through dependencies, and kept updated.
1
10
This analytics powers many recommendation systems, personalization communication engines, and AI/ML startups. If the ecosystem understands mobile engineering better, we will develop better applications and hopefully have a trickling impact on the number of successful startups.
1
8
Lottery! You are a mobile engineer. This is the most common practice for getting people started with mobile development (I have done this too). We go to colleges and hire many engineers from campus interviews. When joining, some engineers are randomly assigned to mobile teams.
1
10
This is when I start hearing from the new hires about how they want to do ML/AI and how they will settle for the backend but don't want to become a UI developer.
1
10
Mobile engineering is also software engineering. Equally complex (if not more). Unfortunately, many of us are brainwashed by college and by our seniors into believing backend engineering is the only real software engineering. I would like to change this perception.
1
14
Looking ahead The first iPhone was launched in 2007; the first Android phone was launched shortly after. Before these smartphones, mobile development (Primarily Symbian/J2ME ) wasn't very popular, and there weren't many app-first companies.
1
8
This also signals to me that most experienced mobile developers of the modern smartphone era now have nearly 15 years of experience. Many of these are now engineering leaders who understand mobile better than many of their contemporaries.
1
9
I write about mobile so that mobile developers know that other engineers and leaders empathize with them; I write about mobile so that engineering leaders know they need to step up their game in mobile engineering.
1
15