Notes from the workshop
What we're thinking about, what we're building, and what we're reading — notes on AI-native engineering, product work, and shipping software that lasts.
How to Build a Live Streaming App: Architecture and Cost
Latency decides everything in streaming app development: pick sub-second WebRTC and the architecture looks one way, accept five seconds of LL-HLS and it looks another. A walk through the ingest-transcode-deliver pipeline, chat and gifting, live moderation, and the cost drivers.
How to Build a Dating App: Matching, Safety, Monetization
Dating apps are matching engines with a social UI on top. This guide covers how matching algorithms and queue fairness work, the verification and safety tooling app stores now require, the monetization math of subscriptions and boosts, and what a build realistically costs.
Creator Monetization Platforms: How They Work, When to Build
Every creator platform is a payments company wearing a content UI. This article explains the four monetization rails, what actually happens inside the payout stack (KYC, splits, holds, tax forms), and when building a custom platform beats renting a white-label one.
Content Moderation Software: Build the Pipeline
Content moderation software is a trust and safety system: it ingests content, classifies it, queues the hard cases for human review, and enforces policy. Here is the pipeline, AI classification, the review queue, the policy engine, CSAM and DSA compliance, and build vs buy.
Community Platform Software: Architecture and Build
Community platform software is an engagement engine: spaces, members, posts, and a real-time feed. Here is the data model, how the activity feed fans out at scale, how roles work, how federation and white-label multi-tenancy are built, and when to build instead of buy.
Top 10 Ukrainian Product IT Companies in 2026: A Complete Overview
Ukraine's product companies keep shipping: Grammarly, GitLab, MacPaw, Ajax Systems, and six more. Who they are in 2026, what they build, and how the industry rebuilt itself around AI and distributed EU teams.
How to Build a Social Media App: From Niche to Network
Most social apps die from an empty feed, not bad code. This guide covers picking a niche the giants ignore, designing the social graph, the feature set that is actually an MVP, and the moderation and monetization decisions that have to happen before launch.
React Native vs Flutter: Which to Choose in 2026
React Native and Flutter are both excellent in 2026, so the real question isn't which is better, it's which fits your product and your team. A senior team's balanced comparison across language, performance, UI, and ecosystem, plus where Kotlin Multiplatform belongs.
Native vs Cross-Platform App Development: How to Choose (2026)
Before you pick a framework, you pick an approach. Native, cross-platform, hybrid, or a PWA: the four ways to build a mobile app, how they differ in cost, performance, and reach, and a straight framework for choosing the right one.
Mobile App Security: Threats, Best Practices & Checklist
A mobile app carries data, credentials, and your reputation in a place you don't control: the user's device. Here's what threatens mobile app security, the practices that defend against it, and a checklist to harden an app before it ships.
The journal, in your inbox
One engineering field note now and then — what we learned shipping production software, no marketing digests.