Services
Work with me
I take on selected contract and consulting work alongside my role at Pocketworks - usually with product-minded teams who want someone that can own a problem end to end rather than wait to be handed tickets.
Four ways that tends to look. If your situation is none of these, say so anyway — it's usually a version of one of them.
1. Mobile Build & Ship
Native iOS or Flutter, from a validated idea to a released app.
For when you know what you need built and you need someone senior to build it properly the first time.
What's included
- Architecture and build — SwiftUI or Flutter, whichever fits the product rather than whichever is fashionable
- Data layer and migrations, including the SwiftData and Core Data schema changes that break apps quietly
- StoreKit / RevenueCat subscriptions, paywalls, and the test harness that stops a broken purchase flow reaching production
- App Store submission, metadata, and review-rejection triage
- Handover documentation written for whoever maintains it next, which is often not me
Who it's for
Founders with a validated idea and no mobile engineer. Product teams that need senior mobile capacity for a defined piece of work. Agencies needing overflow on a fixed scope.
How it works
Fixed-scope project or a day-rate contract. Rate depends on scope and timeline, so I quote after a short call rather than publishing a number that'd be wrong for your project in one direction or the other.
2. Research Sprint
Find out whether it's worth building, before you pay to build it.
The cheapest engineering decision available is the one where you don't write the code. This is the service I built for myself first, and it has killed more of my own product ideas than I can count on two hands.
What's included
- A structured teardown of your market: every competitor, what they charge, what they've shipped and what they've quietly abandoned
- App Store and review-corpus mining - the complaints, at volume, categorised. Users tell you what's broken; almost nobody reads it systematically
- A named opportunity or a named risk, backed by evidence you can check yourself
- A written brief and a recommendation, including the recommendation not to proceed if that's what the evidence says
Who it's for
Founders and product teams about to commit real engineering budget who want a second opinion that isn't just a louder opinion.
How it works
Fixed price, quoted after a scoping call, delivered as a written brief. Typically within 1-2 weeks of the work being kicked off.
What it looks like in practice: for Subero I searched every subscription tracker the UK App Store returned for one term - 199 of them - and matched their listing text against the vocabulary a freelancer actually uses. Nothing came back. For Invoce I read the negative reviews of the nine biggest invoicing apps and sorted the complaints by cause. Both findings changed the scope before any code was written; the second removed a feature rather than adding one. You get the method and the raw output, not just the headline.
3. Paywall & Monetisation Audit
Your subscription setup, reviewed against what actually converts in your category.
Most apps lose more revenue to a badly-placed paywall and a leaky StoreKit implementation than to their pricing. The two problems look identical from the dashboard.
What's included
- Technical audit of the StoreKit / RevenueCat implementation — restore flows, entitlement checks, edge cases around cancellation and refunds
- Paywall placement and copy review: where you ask, not just what you charge
- Competitor pricing benchmark for your specific category
- A prioritised list of changes, ordered by expected impact against effort
Who it's for
An app already live with real revenue, where a monetisation rebuild has never quite justified itself internally.
How it works
Fixed price, single written deliverable, with a call to walk through it. Similar to the research sprint, the turnaround on this is normally 1-2 weeks, but can be agreed together as part of the scoping call.
4. Fractional Mobile Engineering & Product Support
Ongoing senior capacity for teams who need someone to decide as well as build.
This is the one most contractors can't offer. I've been a Product Owner as well as an engineer, so I'm useful in the meeting where you work out whether the feature should exist — and then useful again when it needs building.
What's included
- Agreed weekly or monthly capacity, async-first
- Feature work, releases, dependency and OS upgrades — including the annual iOS version scramble
- Code review and technical direction for a team without a senior mobile voice
- Scope shaping and roadmap input where that's wanted
Who it's for
Small teams without a senior mobile engineer. Agencies needing dependable overflow. A solo founder-engineer who needs someone to disagree with them.
How it works
Monthly retainer, rate on enquiry, 1 month minimum term so that I can give you the best value for my time.
On rates
Day rates and project pricing depend on scope, so I don't publish a number that would be wrong for your project either way.
Tell me what you're building, roughly when you need it, and where it's currently stuck. I'll come back with a straight answer — including "this isn't a good fit for me" if that's the truth, which it sometimes is.
Need a bigger boat?
If you're working on a larger project and need a team of mobile app development specialists, you can still work with me along side some of my friends at Pocketworks