Vadim Drobinin (last updated: 02 Dec 2023)
vadim@drobinin.com · drobinin.com · valzevul · valzevul · @valzevul
Seasoned mobile engineering leader with 15+ years experience building highly scalable iOS apps, leading high-performance teams, and delivering products acquired by industry leaders like Twitter. I specialize in MVP prototyping, improving app architecture and workflows, conducting code quality audits, providing DevOps optimizations, and training mobile teams on the latest iOS best practices. I geek out on all aspects of ideation, design and development required to craft beloved, award-winning user experiences.
Experience ¶
- Senior iOS Engineer @ LivaNova, remote (May 2020 - present)
- Drove successful architecture overhaul to SwiftUI and Composable Architecture, achieving 99.9% crash-free rate and boosting productivity.
- Advocated for integrating latest APIs and following HIG, leading to app being featured in App Store (4.9/5 rating).
- Transformed watchOS app into standalone product, increasing engagement 7%.
- Maintained AWS SDK fork, reducing time-to-market by 3 months.
- Conducted security audits per OWASP standards (70%+ MAVS compliance).
- Automated and optimised release and testing pipelines, saving 6+ hours/week for iOS team.
- Led GraphQL and AWS integration on the iOS side.
- Designed hiring programs and interview guidelines for the mobile org, doubling the size of the team.
- Mobile Engineering Consultant @ Drobinin Limited, remote (2013 – Present)
- Over 10 years shipping commercial iOS apps and leading teams. Apple WWDC scholarship recipient.
- Cofounded largest iOS meetup in Eastern Europe (10K+ members).
- Spearheaded top-ranked CryptoTrader app
- As Head of Engineering, built high-performance culture and teams.
- Delivered diverse apps, from parking solutions, to Apple Watch video streaming services to wearable companions to a rapidly growing online education platform, to eCommerce products.
- Instructor for 22-week onsight iOS course at VK University.
- Led fitness startup's mobile app development leading to USA and UAE expansion, culminating in acquisition.
- Senior iOS Engineer @ Sphere (acquired by Twitter), London, UK (2017-2020)
- Joined early stage startup and engineered iOS app through high growth.
- Led R&D initiatives including end-to-end testing framework (increased crash-free rate to 99.99%).
- Automated code reviews, accelerating PR throughput 70%.
- Migrated client-side network stack to Protobuf, cutting traffic 35% and enabling zero-error analytics.
- Architected in-app chat ad platform, driving 200% CTR lift.
- Product validated by top investors ($30M+ raised) and acquired by Twitter.
- Lead iOS Engineer @ ToBox, remote (2015-2016)
- Architected transition from MVC to MVVM, reducing technical debt.
- Introduced git flow, boosted test automation, optimised CI/CD.
- Scaled iOS team from 2 to 8 engineers via structured hiring and onboarding.
- Directed development of new Tobox Seller app, improving user experience.
- Tackled performance gaps by coaching teams on alignment and learning.
- Championed rewriting core chat framework in Swift, decreasing buyer churn 35%.
- Cloud Architect @ Drobinin Limited, remote (2008-2013)
- Transitioned from front-end expert to cloud engineer (10+ projects).
- Specialised in scalable REST APIs, cloud architecture, and databases with Google App Engine and Django.
- Mentored 40+ students in Python over 3 years.
Awards ¶
- 2021 Webby Awards Honoree for Best Apps and Software @ Webby Awards (Apr 2021)
- 2021 CES Best of Innovation Award - Health and Wellness @ CES (Dec 2020)
- 2021 CES Innovation Award - Software and Mobile Apps @ CES (Dec 2020)
- Google Material Design Award @ Google (Dec 2020)
- International Competition of Research Works of Students @ NRU HSE (Mar 2017)
- Ilya Segalovich's Grant @ Yandex (Apr 2016)
- "Best App of VK Hackathon", two nominations @ VK.com (Oct 2015)
- Apple WWDC Scholarship @ Apple (Jun 2015)
- Technology Entrepreneurship, A+ @ Stanford University (Mar 2014)
Current stack ¶
- iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, tvOS experience
- Swift, Objective-C, SwiftUI, UIKit, storyboards
- Combine, async/await, ReactiveSwift, The Composable Architecture (TCA)
- SPM, Carthage, cocoapods
- fastlane, Github Actions, CircleCI, bash
- git, svn, lldb, Hopper, Charles
- Algorithms and data structures, mobile security (OWASP), system architecture, design system automation
Education ¶