/dev/world 2026

Building Apps Your Backend Team Will Love

Every mobile app dev eventually asks themselves: Do I need a backend? Sometimes the answer is “not yet”. Modern Apple platforms offer an few options, from local persistence and CloudKit through to third-party services like Firebase and Supabase, before you ever need to talk to your own server. But when you do cross that line, your app becomes part of a distributed system. Suddenly, every network request affects battery life, infrastructure cost, reliability, scalability, and the engineers responsible for keeping your backend running. In this talk, we’ll explore how to build mobile apps that backend teams genuinely enjoy supporting. We’ll cover when to avoid a backend altogether, choosing the right architecture, designing resilient API clients, caching, authentication, retries, environment management, and the small engineering decisions that have an great impact on both teams. Whether you’re building your first networked app or your fiftieth, you’ll leave with practical techniques and a new mental model for building apps your backend team will love.

About the presenter

Sam Jarman is a Kiwi engineering manager based in Sydney, Australia, with over 15 years of experience in software development. His background includes development and leadership roles in iOS, frontend, backend across startups, agencies, small businesses, and medtech. Sam currently leads a team of engineers at Cochlear, where he focuses on helping the team work efficiently and grow their skills.