As lead engineer for Somna, a sleep & wellness app, I tackled a dual challenge: a lack of data and a buggy product. First, I architected a full-stack React dashboard providing the first clear insights into their core metrics: user lifecycle, subscriptions, and content engagement. This informed my complete overhaul of the live Flutter app, where I rebuilt the broken payment and offline systems. The result was a stable, data-driven platform with secured revenue and a vastly improved user experience.

I inherited the Somna app in a critical state: the payment system was failing, offline mode was broken, and the business had no data on user behavior. I acted as the sole engineer to turn the product around.

As the lead and sole engineer, I acted as the full-stack product owner for the app. My approach was to move beyond surface-level bug fixes and re-architect the app's most critical systems from the ground up. I began by triaging the highest-impact issues affecting users and revenue, then systematically worked through the codebase from the purchase logic and file management to the build system and UI components to deliver a robust, maintainable, and scalable application.

To move beyond guesswork and enable a data-driven strategy, I architected and built a comprehensive analytics dashboard from the ground up using a modern web stack (React, Next.js, and Recharts). This internal tool became the single source of truth for the company, providing real-time insights into the app's most critical business metrics.

Key capabilities I implemented include:

Real-time Subscription Metrics: Visualized the entire user lifecycle, tracking trial user counts, monthly/yearly subscribers, and calculating precise conversion and churn rates.

Content Engagement Tracking: Identified the most popular songs and categories, allowing the team to see exactly what content resonated with users.

Dynamic Filtering & Views: Enabled stakeholders to analyze trends across customizable periods (7, 30, 90 days) and toggle between daily and cumulative data.

A key challenge was ensuring data integrity. I implemented advanced logic to handle complex scenarios, such as excluding internal 'whitelist' users and flagging data from legacy migration scripts, guaranteeing that the team was making decisions based on clean, accurate metrics.

The highest priority was fixing the broken payment system. Users were unable to restore purchases, creating a frustrating experience and a direct compliance risk with the App Store. I re-architected the entire IAP flow by implementing proper user identity management with RevenueCat, ensuring purchases were tied to user accounts, not anonymous device IDs. This immediately fixed the 'Restore Purchase' functionality and secured the app's monetization.

The app's offline mode was unusable. Downloaded content, including audio and artwork, would become inaccessible after the app restarted. I diagnosed the root cause and rebuilt the entire download system. The new architecture saves relative filenames and reconstructs paths at runtime, creating a robust and reliable offline experience that works every time.

A premium app requires a polished user experience. I systematically resolved dozens of UI/UX bugs that made the app feel unprofessional. This included fixing jarring navigation animations, ensuring player background art synced correctly on song changes, redesigning layouts to prevent overlapping elements, and standardizing the UI for a consistent look and feel across all screens.

To ensure long-term viability, I executed a platform-wide modernization pass. This involved upgrading the entire build system to support the latest versions of Flutter and Dart, replacing deprecated packages like uni_links, and resolving numerous build-time crashes on both iOS and Android. This effort stabilized the platform and made future feature development faster and more reliable.

By leading this comprehensive overhaul, I transformed the Somna app from a buggy, unstable product into a professional and reliable user experience. The key outcomes include:

Secured Revenue Streams: A fully functional and compliant IAP system that allows users to purchase and restore subscriptions seamlessly.

A Truly Functional Offline Mode: Users can now reliably download and access content without an internet connection.

Vastly Improved User Experience: A polished, intuitive, and bug-free interface that builds user trust and improves retention.

A Stable & Modern Codebase: A solid technical foundation that enables faster, more predictable future development.