Currently I am all about mobile! I feel as though I've always wanted to learn mobile development, and downloading many apps onto my iPod Touch played a role in my desire to learn how to code. During my first internship after my Sophomore year of college, I built a Mobile Web App using the jQuery Mobile framework alongside Javascript, jQuery, HTML and CSS. At first I found it incredibly challenging; to design a powerful application with numerous options on a 4.7 inch or smaller screen takes a lot of trial and error, and most importantly the ability to step back and think about the user experience.

My First iOS App - Internship

Following up on that fantastic experience, during my internship in the summer after my Junior year of college, I was tasked with building an iOS App. Initially I thought using a program called Xamarin would be perfect - It creates native iOS Apps in C#, and I know Java well! Well, even though I felt creative for doing this, I couldn't help but to think I was taking the easy way out, and avoiding a challenge. Well I decided to tackle the challenge. I purchased an iOS Development Course to learn Swift, Apple's fairly new and incredibly powerful programming language. The course was quite long to go through, and at times it was tedious. Nevertheless, I couldn't be happier that I did it. I felt rather comfortable with Swift after the course, since it was project based and I actually built a number of apps along with the course's instruction.

Throughout the remainder of my internship, I operated under an agile development method and worked through numerous sprints with team members representing Development, Mobile Strategy and User Experience. Having a team with such diversity was a fantastic experience for me, and allowed the app to be the best that it could truthfully be. I successfully developed the app as a standalone product, released it for testing and then worked side by side with an expert team of mobile developers to integrate the functionality of my app into an app they had just put into production firm-wide. To look back at the work I had done for people using a device they likely use countless times each and every single day is really a rewarding feeling.

iOS App - URcode

While at school for my Senior year, I was introduced to a friend of a friend who had an idea for an iOS app that he thought would be a hit. The main goal of the app was to simplify sharing contact information and social media accounts with other people that you meet, which is traditionally done verbally one at a time and is a relatively long and error-prone process (thanks to "creative" usernames!). That being said, he believed that it would be much simpler to present a QR code and let users scan it, which allows them to then view all of the entered data (contact information and usernames) as text. From there, it would be much easier for a user to copy and paste the data from the app and paste it into the corresponding app they were collecting the data for (e.g. Twitter username). Instantly, I loved the idea and could see it being an extremely popular app amongst high school and college students, and even in other contexts.

So I checked into the feasibility of the concept we had a few brainstorming sessions, and then we ran with the app. So we built out a set of features, placing emphasis on the quick and intuitive user experience, knowing the criticality of this, and I implemented the features. Within one week the app was built, and within two weeks I had conducted a brief beta test of the app with some friends, elicited their feedback and incorporated it into the version which I submitted to the Apple App Store for review. The app is now available for download on the App Store here!

iOS App - Xercise

At Monmouth University, all Software Engineers are required to complete a two-semester Senior Practicum Project in their Senior Year. This project is typically done in groups of four or more people. For the project, students are tasked with completing all of the documentation for the project, including requirements, design and a project plan.

Coming off of my newfound love for building iOS apps, I proposed the idea to my group of building an iOS app. They were all interested in pursuing this idea, but were slightly hesitant because of the fact that no one else had any iOS experience. I encouraged them that they would be able to learn enough to build the app using resources I had used to learn Swift along with my guidance. Eager to take on such a challenge, we decided as a group to make an iOS app to help people exercise. One of our group members was very into fitness and said he often gets texts from friends asking for good exercises to do because they didn't know which ones they should be doing. There are plenty of apps on the app store that provide users with seemingly endless exercises, but they require the user to select them, and when a less experienced person is trying to find the best ways to work out, this selection becomes the most difficult part of the process! Therefore, we decided to create an app which would allow users to select a muscle group they wanted to work out (for example legs), and optionally a sub-muscle group (for example hamstrings), and the app would go through a database of exercises and give the user back an exercise that works out that muscle! We also added entire workouts which function the same and even gave the user the ability to save the exercises and workouts to their device, so that there is no dependency on internet connection to complete your workouts. Additionally, to grow our database of exercises, we allow users to create their own exercises and publish them to the community (after a review process by our team).

This project was a great learning process for me as it was the first time I had interacted with a backend database and backend services, in addition to learning a ton of iOS features like Core Data. Ultimately, the project was a success and is published on the App Store here!

Third Internship

Since I elected to enroll in a 5-Year Master's program, meaning I only needed an additional 30 credits to achieve my Master's in Software Engineering (an accelerated plan since I completed my undergraduate studies in Software Engineering), I was able to intern for another summer, and I continued this internship throughout the Fall & Spring semesters. This experience for me was quite rewarding, because I came back and worked on the app I had previously integrated my features into, and got to see the tremendous impact it had on tens of thousands of people in the company!

I functioned as an iOS Software Engineer on the project, building new features and maintaining the production application. I learned a tremendous amount during this time, as this was my first true experience as a regular team member sprint after sprint. As one can imagine, getting used to time constraints and team dynamics is a significant challenge, but I was able to adapt to this environment and succeed in my role of producing good quality work that provides business value to app users.

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