Hello World
An introduction to who I am, how I think about software, and why this blog exists.
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.
Not necessarily start a blog in the traditional sense, but create a place where I can write things down—things I’ve learned, things I’m working through, and things I don’t want to forget.
Most of my work happens in fragments. A note here, a comment there, a realization in the middle of debugging something that felt more complicated than it needed to be. Over time, those fragments add up. But they’re easy to lose.
This is my attempt to make those things a little more durable.
Who I am
I’m Brett Chapin. I’ve been working as a software engineer since 2017, primarily focused on iOS development. Most of my day-to-day work revolves around building and maintaining applications—thinking through edge cases, improving workflows, and trying to keep things from becoming more complex than they need to be.
I currently work at Sweetwater, where I spend a lot of time thinking about how software supports real-world processes. Outside of that, I’m a co-founder of MieTech, which is where a lot of my side projects and experiments tend to live.
Over time, I’ve found that I’m less interested in chasing new frameworks and more interested in understanding how systems behave over time—how small decisions compound, and how to build things that are easier to work with six months later, not just today.
How I think about software
I tend to prefer simple systems.
Not necessarily minimal systems, but systems where the complexity is intentional and understood. A lot of the problems I’ve run into haven’t come from hard problems—they’ve come from small decisions that weren’t revisited, or abstractions that made things harder to reason about later.
I’m interested in:
- Keeping state predictable
- Making code easier to navigate and change
- Improving developer workflows
- Reducing friction in day-to-day work
- Building things that hold up over time
Lately, that’s also included figuring out where AI actually helps in development—and where it just adds noise.
Why this blog exists
This isn’t meant to be a polished set of tutorials or authoritative guides.
It’s closer to a working notebook.
Some posts will be small—just a quick note about something that tripped me up. Others might be more thought-out reflections on patterns I’ve noticed over time. A lot of it will probably sit somewhere in between.
The goal is simple:
- Write things down
- Make them searchable
- Let them compound over time
If something here is useful to someone else, that’s great. But the primary goal is to make my own thinking a little clearer and a little more permanent.
What to expect
Most of what I write will likely fall into a few categories:
- iOS development (Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit)
- Backend/API work when it intersects with mobile
- Developer workflow improvements
- Notes on tools and processes
- Occasional thoughts on building and maintaining side projects
Nothing too formal. Just things that felt worth keeping.
Closing
If nothing else, this gives me a place to put a thought when I have it, instead of hoping I’ll remember it later.
That alone makes it worth doing.
— Brett