alexis

software engineer, nyc

GitHub

latest posts

Byte of the Week: Accessible Stack Axis in SwiftUI →

In this Byte, we learn how to change the axis of a stack in SwiftUI to keep content legible.

Byte of the Week: Lazy Collections →

In this Byte, we learn how to take advantage of lazy collections in Swift.

Byte of the Week: String Range & NSRange →

In this Byte, we learn how to convert a String range to an NSRange and vice-versa.

Byte of the Day: Haptics in SwiftUI →

In this Byte, we learn how to play haptic feedback in SwiftUI using custom environment keys.

TalksBytes

about me

Hello! My name is Alexis (Aubry) Akers. My pronouns are he/him. I am a software engineer originally from Paris, now living in New York City.

After studying law, humanities and computer science in France for a year, I dropped out of university to start my career as an iOS developer in Berlin. Since then, I have worked on various projects and started speaking at conferences.

My areas of expertise include:

  • Architecting and developing complex iOS apps
  • Building and designing accessible, inclusive software
  • Maintaining open source projects

timeline

MetroBuddy

Indie Project, since 2020

MetroBuddy is an iOS app that lets you track and update the balance of your New York transit MetroCard on the go.

I started this project during the great quarantine of 2020, with the goal of learning how to use SwiftUI and Combine with Core Data. The app is free and open source.

Yunar Wallet by Deutsche Bank

Berlin, Germany, 2019 to 2020

Yunar is a wallet digitalization service available on iOS and Android. I worked on the iOS client, written fully in Swift using RxSwift and the MVVM+C architecture.

As a member of the core app team, I had the opportunity to have real impact on users and the company. This is some of the work of which I am the proudest:

  • Taking ownership of accessibility topics and planning the successful delivery of a more accessible Yunar
  • Designing and implementing a new sync engine for the app to function offline-first
  • Sharing knowledge about iOS development and our codebase with the data science team, enabling them to take over the tracking features
  • Coordinating the launch of the product in France by assisting with translations and internationalization

ScaleBook

Indie Project, since 2018

I started working on ScaleBook on a flight to New York in 2018. I wanted to explore ways we can display Health data in a more objective way to users.

The desire to explore this comes from my personal challenges. I have been on a journey to live a healthier and more active life. However, the current weight tracking app landscape was not helping me with this goal, due to their sometimes aggressive and pressuring methods.

This is why I wanted to work on a more objective version with a more streamlined and advanced feature set than existing solutions. ScaleBook was born from this research, and I have been working closely with people with advanced needs, such as athletes, to polish it and make it the Swiss army knife of weight tracking.

Wire Messenger

Berlin, Germany, 2018 to 2019

As a memeber of the Wire iOS team, I had the chance to learn about VoIP, security best practices and encryption. I worked in both Swift and Objective-C in an open-source codebase that used Core Data and background execution extensively.

Some of my most notable contributions are:

  • Planning and delivering a large scale refactor of the legacy authentication stack
  • Introducing code generation to the build infrastructure
  • Organizing accessibility workshops to increase awareness about inclusive design practices
  • Helping implement group video calling on the client side