About Me
Hi, I’m Rafael Schmitt—a senior iOS developer based in Brasil 🇧🇷.
I work with Swift, SwiftUI, scalable apps, and syncing strategies for offline-first apps. I’m passionate about shipping polished interfaces and writing about what I learn. Open to relocating for the right opportunity.
I started this blog at the end of 2024 because I realized I had a few things to say about technology that I didn't see other people talking about.
My relationship with technology started with beige PC boxes in my school's computer lab in the early 2000s. Linux, browser games and obsessively refreshing Harry Potter blogs made my eyes glimmer with the possibilities of those weird machines. Soon after my mom bought a Windows 98 box for her own college work. We finally had a PC at home, but no Internet!
I would spend hours designing my own versions of Windows on PowerPoint on that computer. It's not a stretch to say 30 year-old Rafael is just 10-year-old Rafael with more powerful tools.
I graduated with a technical degree in Electronics in 2014 but immediately switched to software—that’s what I really wanted to do. I spent four years writing Delphi, trying to make sense of Brasil’s tax rules, and designing screens and icons at a small software house in Novo Hamburgo. Their company logo is still one of my designs.
My deep love (and obsession) for Apple made me get my first Mac in 2016, a used 2012 Mac mini. That—plus a “found” copy of a Big Nerd Ranch book from a Russian site—gave me my start on iOS. I was already an avid follower and reader of Apple news sources back then and that gave me a good head start on developing apps for the iPhone.
In 2019 I got my first mobile-related job as an iOS test automator for a local company (remote client). This is when I fell in love with BDD. From there I would graduate to an iOS developer position in 2021, thanks to my continuous study and a good manager that bet on me.
I moved on to work for a bank at the end of the same year.
In 2022, I launched Medo e Delírio, born out of frustration with both my job at the time and Brasil’s political landscape. Building my first app was a joy. I'm specially proud of the content delivery system I built in 2023, which serves 5,000 monthly users—for just 5 dollars a month. You can read more about it here.
In that same year I joined Poatek (now TELUS Digital) and like to think of my job as 50% nerding out with some of the best tech nerds ever and 50% pretending Jira is fun.
I hope you find something here that sparks curiosity or resonates with your own journey.