Reflecting on a Journey of Continuous Learning and Personal Growth 🚀

Leadership roles come with a tricky trade-off—one that’s always quietly gnawed at me.

The more time you spend nurturing people, building teams, shaping culture, and refining strategy, the less time you get to roll up your sleeves and write code. And for someone who came up through engineering and still loves the feel of a keyboard under his fingers, that was something I wasn’t willing to give up completely.

So I made a promise to myself: never stop learning.

It Started with Swift

In 2014, Apple introduced a brand-new programming language—Swift. While most people were still getting their heads around Objective-C, I decided to dive into the deep end. What began as a simple weekend experiment to tinker with Apple's new language turned into a full-on project.

That app? It made it all the way to the App Store.

This month marks 10 years since that first app launched. What started as a side project turned into a decade-long journey of hands-on learning—one build, one bug fix, one release at a time.

Why I Still Code

That iOS app was just the beginning. Over the years, I've created dozens of side projects—apps, tools, experiments, Cloud-based services—all with one goal in mind: stay technical.

Some were fun. Some were painful. All were worth it.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way:

• User feedback makes your product better—full stop.
• Iteration is the secret sauce to everything.
• Technologies change fast, and the half-life of knowledge keeps shrinking.
• Shipping something real (and having it actually used!) is immensely satisfying.

These lessons didn’t come from books or meetings—they came from doing.

Leading with Both Hands

While my day job focuses on leading amazing teams and driving strategy, these personal projects help me stay grounded in the craft. There’s a unique kind of empathy that comes from debugging your own code at 11 PM. It's humbling. And it keeps you connected to the work your teams are doing every day.

To any engineering leaders reading this: find your way to stay close to the craft.

Maybe it’s through open source. Maybe it’s tinkering with AI models. Maybe it’s just reading through PRs or contributing feedback.

Whatever it is—don’t let go of it.

Explore the App That Started It All

Curious about that very first app I built with Swift?

👉 Check it out here

What About You?

What personal projects have fueled your learning journey? Whether it’s code, writing, design, or building things in the garage—I’d love to hear what keeps you sharp.

Let’s keep learning.