Push notifications people do not turn off
A permission prompt is a one-shot resource. What we learned about when to ask, what to send, and how quickly goodwill runs out.
Handling money in code: never use a float
0.1 + 0.2 does not equal 0.3, and your payout ledger will eventually notice. How we represent money and why rounding is a product decision.
Offline-first on mobile: what actually breaks
Everyone agrees apps should work on a bad connection. Far fewer have decided what happens when two devices disagree about the truth.
What we check before adding a dependency
Every package is code you did not write, will not read, and now maintain. Five questions we ask before typing install.
Feature flags without the mess
Flags let you ship unfinished work safely. They also rot into permanent branching nobody dares delete. The rules we use to get one without the other.
Designing an API your mobile team will not curse in six months
The mobile client cannot ship a hotfix in ten minutes. That single constraint should shape almost every decision about the API behind it.
Eight apps, one backend: what shared infrastructure actually costs
Our products share accounts, wallet and payouts. That saved us a great deal of work and introduced problems nobody warns you about.
Native or cross-platform: an honest decision tree
Not a verdict - a set of questions. Which parts of your product actually care about the answer, and where the choice matters far less than people argue.
Server-authoritative game logic: never let the client decide the prize
If the phone decides whether a player won, someone will eventually teach the phone to always win. How we structure reward logic so the client only renders the result.