Appmypets

Context

A Gran Canaria startup building a social network and digital documentation platform for pets (veterinary certificates, pet passports, insurance). I joined the team as a remote mobile developer covering the mobile side and collaborating with the backend team.

The product targeted pet owners who travel with their animals and need official documentation always at hand, plus a social layer to share experiences and recommendations.

What I did

• Reusable components in React Native with strict TypeScript and state managed with custom Hooks.
• Backend coordination with NestJS + MongoDB on Google Cloud, API contract definition and joint endpoint reviews.
• Social feed: main screen with posts, likes, comments and optimized infinite scroll.
• Document management: upload, visualization and sharing of pet documents with local persistence.
• Testing: manual and Jest unit — coverage in auth, feed and persistence.
• Agile methodology: weekly Jira sprints, daily standups and retros every two sprints.

Technical challenges

Syncing state between navigation and feed refetching in React Native without visible blocks was the hardest. Solution: a custom hook with optimistic updates and background revalidation, decoupling the UI from the data layer.

The other complexity: pet registration forms with complex validation (species, breeds, species-dependent veterinary fields). Solved with a shared zod schema validated on client and server.

Lessons

The biggest value was backend communication: APIs change during development and an isolated mobile dev ends up blocking everyone else. Time invested defining OpenAPI contracts upfront pays back three times over.