Top all-time · #15952
Vadim Drobinin
Personal blog · drobinin.com/posts · on HN as valzevulprogrammingcareer
Vadim Drobinin's personal blog at drobinin.com covers programming and career. Since 2019, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 28 times, most often “Things I Learnt in 2021”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Vadim Drobinin's posts for their dry, humorous style, such as "The Whole App is a Blob", and for a residency app he built that one commenter wanted to try.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Senior iOS engineer & consultant. 15+ years shipping apps for medical, fintech, and consumer. SwiftUI, TCA, on-device ML, HIPAA. Apps acquired by Twitter, featured by Apple, CES & Webby honours.
Most-linked posts?
- Things I Learnt in 20212 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-31
- I accidentally became PureGym’s unofficial Apple Wallet developer2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-08-15
What Hacker News says?
It wasn't super obvious reading the article, but the app the author made is available for anyone to download. https://drobinin.com/apps/residency/ If I wasn't on android and decidedly sedentary at the moment, I'd love to see how it works.
Comment linking /apps/residency/
on “You can't cURL a Border”Submitted I accidentally became PureGym’s unofficial Apple Wallet developer as a story · 649 points
HN discussionHi, I am an iOS developer who is pretty dispassionate when it comes to writing code and yet is a huge fan of the whole Apple ecosystem, so I talk at the events here and there. Can help you with release pipelines, automation of CI/CD flows, solid app's architecture or just bring your iOS team to the next level (or help building it from scratch), so essentially looking for a more senior position. Location: London, Uni…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2019)”Submitted You can't cURL a Border as a story · 471 points
HN discussionTo be clear, I found the dry quip about the 4th of July amusing, and specifically pointed out that I thought that specific parenthesised line was inserted by the author. I don't think a British author would naturally reach for "4th of July" as their frame of reference for bombastic celebrations in the first place, though. My point was that seemed to be something the LLM generated and the author riffed off of. I'm no…
Comment linking /posts/how-i-accidentally-became-puregyms-unofficial-apple-wallet-developer/
on “The Whole App is a Blob”Submitted Things I Learnt in 2020 as a story · 221 points
HN discussionI guess to each their own. I enjoyed the style and even laughed a bit at the part you highlighted (writer humorously pointed out the obvious fact that 4th of July is not something UK celebrates). I think you look for AI too hard. Perhaps that kind of dry humour is not too your liking, or you're not used to this style? FWIW i lived in the UK a bit, so I'm rather familiar with the way locals speak casually. Btw. you c…
Comment linking /posts/things-i-learnt-in-2021/
on “The Whole App is a Blob”Submitted Designing software for things that rot as a story · 177 points
HN discussionLocation: London, UK Remote: Within the UK. Willing to relocate: Within the UK. Technologies: iOS, Swift, Objective-C, Xcode, CI/CD, fastlane Résumé/CV: https://drobinin.com/cv Email: hn@drobinin.com -------- Started as a web developer in 2008, switched to backend in 2011 and shipped my first iOS app in 2013. Won Apple WWDC Scholarship, led VK University's iOS track, a regular speaker at mobile conferences worldwide…
Comment linking /cv
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2019)”Submitted The Whole App is a Blob as a story · 164 points
HN discussionLocation: London, United Kingdom Remote: Yes, if this is a contract without strict time zones Willing to relocate: No Technologies: All things iOS (Swift, Objective-C, Xcode, CI/CD, fastlane, watchOS); leading, coaching and mentoring; building and designing scalable and performant systems. Résumé/CV: https://drobinin.com/cv Email: hn@drobinin.com --- Started as a web developer in 2008, switched to backend in 2011 an…
Comment linking /cv
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2020)”Submitted What I've learned sending proposals to conferences as a story · 151 points
HN discussionSEEKING WORK | London, UK | Remote All things iOS / watchOS / tvOS. Started as a web developer in 2008, switched to backend in 2011 and shipped my first iOS app in 2013. Won Apple WWDC Scholarship, led VK University's iOS track, a regular speaker at mobile conferences worldwide since 2015. If you need help with finally moving that needle which prevents your company from conquering the world and it has anything to do…
Comment linking /cv
on “Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? (January 2020)”Submitted Things I Learnt in 2023 as a story · 71 points
HN discussionHey, OP here, that’d be sad indeed but the RSS is at https://drobinin.com/feed.xml
Comment linking /feed.xml
on “Things I Learnt in 2023”Submitted Apple's Problem with Bodies as a story · 67 points
HN discussionLocation: Vancouver, Canada Remote: Yes (worldwide) Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, Swift Concurrency, TCA, Core ML/Vision, HealthKit, watchOS, BLE/NFC, Push Notifications, App Store Review, OWASP MASVS, visionOS Email: hn@drobinin.com Résumé: https://drobinin.com/consulting Senior iOS engineer / Apple-platform consultant with 12+ years of experience. I build and fix iOS and Vision…
Comment linking /consulting
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2026)”Submitted Things I Learnt in 2021 as a story · 49 points
HN discussionLocation: Vancouver, Canada Remote: Yes (worldwide) Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, Swift Concurrency, TCA, Core ML/Vision, HealthKit, watchOS, BLE/NFC, Push Notifications, App Store Review, OWASP MASVS, visionOS Email: hn@drobinin.com Résumé: https://drobinin.com/consulting Senior iOS engineer / Apple-platform consultant with 12+ years of experience. I build and fix iOS and Vision…
Comment linking /consulting
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2026)”Submitted My phone replaced a brass plug as a story · 5 points
HN discussionLocation: Vancouver, Canada Remote: Yes (worldwide) Willing to relocate: Yes (within Canada) Technologies: iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, Swift Concurrency, TCA, Core ML/Vision, Metal, OWASP MASVS, watchOS, iPadOS CV: https://drobinin.com/consulting Email: hn@drobinin.com Senior iOS engineer / consultant (12+ years). I build and fix iOS and Vision Pro apps from medical devices and high-traffic consumer apps to vibecode…
Comment linking /consulting
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2026)”Submitted Am I a Bad Friend? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLocation: Vancouver, Canada Remote: Yes (worldwide) Willing to relocate: Yes (within Canada) Technologies: iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, Swift Concurrency, TCA, Core ML/Vision, Metal, OWASP MASVS, watchOS, iPadOS CV: https://drobinin.com/consulting Senior iOS engineer / consultant (12+ years). I build and fix iOS and Vision Pro apps from medical devices and high-traffic consumer apps to vibecoded startups struggling t…
Comment linking /consulting
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2026)”Submitted Show HN: I built a release tracker for my indie apps as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLocation: Montreal, Canada Remote: Yes (worldwide) Willing to relocate: Yes (within Canada) Technologies: iOS, Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, Swift Concurrency, TCA, Core ML/Vision, Metal, OWASP MASVS, watchOS, iPadOS Résumé/CV: https://drobinin.com/consulting Email: hn@drobinin.com Senior iOS engineer / consultant (12+ years). I build and rescue iOS and Vision Pro apps that have to work: medical devices, high-traffic consu…
Comment linking /consulting
on “Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2026)”Submitted Something Is Coming (2016) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Verifying localisation in iOS apps with GitHub Actions: the reinvented wheel as a story · 1 points
HN discussion