Ideas & Insights
We’re a curious bunch who like to share our knowledge and reflect on our experiences. Read our latest thoughts on technology, design, product strategy, and what we're building.
Why We Moved from a CMS to AI Coding Agents
The site lives in a code repo now, with agent development kits as the editing layer. Anyone on the team can build and publish, and it's far easier for LLMs to read and cite.
July 2, 2026 | Andy Simpson, Daniel Taylor, and Diogo Rosa
AI Infrastructure: When to Build, Buy, or Wait
Most AI infrastructure decisions don't become expensive immediately — they become expensive later, when requirements change and the architecture is harder to untangle than anyone expected.
May 27, 2026 | Anton Kopylov and Diogo Rosa
Open-Source CMS as a Backend Platform: What It Replaces, and What's Still Custom
On a recent mobile app build, we used an open-source CMS to dramatically reduce the commodity backend work, while building a custom layer to handle personalization and AI features. Here's how we made the split.
April 14, 2026 | Daniel Taylor and Jefferson Tavares de Pádua
AI-Augmented Infrastructure Audits: The Speed, the Gaps, and What Senior Engineers Still Own
AI agents can audit a production infrastructure stack in minutes, not hours. But speed without engineering judgment is a liability. Here's the architecture and where the line falls.
February 23, 2026 | Diogo Rosa
You launched an AI assistant. Do you know if it's working?
Most teams can see when conversations go wrong. The harder part is explaining why- and knowing what to fix. This is the framework we use for measuring quality, tracing failures, and understanding impact.
February 4, 2026 | Lucila Senador
Faster Insights with AI: Building an AI Voice Assistant to Scale User Interviews
How we built Emily, our voice AI researcher, to automate user interviews and gather insights at scale — breaking free from traditional research bottlenecks.
July 16, 2025 | Daniel Taylor
AI in Software Development: Avoiding Pitfalls and Unlocking Long-term Potential
Strategic AI integration in software development that enhances productivity while preserving human expertise, creativity, and team collaboration.
June 30, 2025 | Diogo Rosa and Lucila Senador
Working Demo, So What? The Reality Gap Between AI Prototypes and Production
How rapid prototyping enabled by AI tools is transforming product development—and creating new challenges in the journey from proof-of-concept to production.
April 8, 2025 | Daniel Taylor and Diogo Rosa
Future-Proof Your Codebase: Early Technical Decisions That Scale
The wrong technical foundation becomes a bottleneck when you need to scale. From code styling to architecture choices, learn actionable strategies to give your project the best start.
March 25, 2025 | Diogo Rosa and Rafał Jamróz
5 Steps for Successful AI Development Tool Adoption
Getting the best from AI dev tools requires a systematic, methodical approach to adoption rather than rushing into widespread implementation. We share how to win buy-in from developers with our framework, based on findings from our internal AI Development Tools initiative.
March 13, 2025 | Diogo Rosa
Why we Continue to Invest in React Native in 2025
Find out how React Native matured from a Facebook experiment to become the industry standard—powering 30% of top iOS apps with native-like performance—and why it’s the strategic choice.
March 6, 2025 | Everaldo Rosa
Five IoT Innovations Powered by Software Alone
From AirPods becoming hearing aids to smart bulbs detecting motion, software innovations are revolutionizing IoT capabilities while reducing costs. Learn how companies are maximizing hardware potential through smart algorithms.
February 22, 2025 | Mateo Arizcorreta
Debunking React Native Myths: Why Expo is Now Our Go-To (Even for Complex Projects)
Old perceptions die hard in tech, and Expo's reputation as a 'beginners-only' React Native framework persists despite its evolution. Learn why we now choose it even for our most demanding, high-performance mobile projects, and why you should too.
January 31, 2025 | Rui Lu
FlashList vs. FlatList: Understanding the Key Differences for React Native Performance
In this article, we explain how we improved performance and UX issues using FlashList as a better alternative to FlatList. We’ll cover why FlashList’s cell recycling strategy outperforms FlatList’s virtualization for complex layouts and share practical tips to fine-tune performance, improve FPS, and avoid crashes.
January 27, 2025 | Everaldo Rosa
Behind the Product: How Tech Matters is Bringing Silicon Valley to Social Good
Jim Fruchterman, CEO and Founder at Tech Matters, explains why nonprofits shouldn't chase the latest tech trends—and how to make technology actually work for social impact.
January 23, 2025 | Robert Beames
Mastering OpenSearch at Scale: A Practical Guide for Enterprise Search Solutions
When queries take too long, they block real-time business decisions. We share architecture and optimization patterns drawn from real warehouse management systems processing millions of records.
January 7, 2025 | Thales Godinho Kenne
Behind the Product: How Keybotic’s AI-Trained Robot Dog is Changing an Industry
Irene Gomez Alemany, CEO and Co-Founder at Keybotic, explains how they identified the market gap for their autonomous hazardous inspection robot—and their Robot as a Service model.
December 3, 2024 | Robert Beames
From ‘Always Connected’ to ‘Fully Off-Grid’: Engineering Offline IoT Solutions
In this article, we'll guide you through our approach to engineering offline-resilient IoT applications, turning the challenge of disconnection into an opportunity for enhanced functionality.
August 8, 2024 | Lucas Diez de Medina
Beyond Front-End Metrics: Harnessing Backend Insights for Scale-Up Success
While front-end analytics provide crucial metrics, the full story often lies buried in backend systems. Discover pragmatic strategies for scale-ups on how to bridge this gap and drive far better decisions for their products and users.
July 26, 2024 | Mateo Arizcorreta
When ChatGPT Meets Business Logic: An Experiment in AI-Powered Validation
In our quest to explore AI's role in software development, we challenged ChatGPT with a sticky bit of business logic validation. The results were expectedly unexpected. Read on to learn more.
June 5, 2024 | Jefferson Tavares de Pádua
From the Field: 6 UX Principles for Creating Superior IoT Apps
Gain insights on six UX-driven principles for IoT app success, illustrated with examples from leading applications and one of our client case studies.
June 3, 2024 | Mateo Arizcorreta
Meet Lucila Senador, Senior Product Manager
From designing blueprints to discovering her passion for tech, Lucila has been a driving force behind some of Whitespectre’s most impactful projects. Known for her AI enthusiasm and mastery of team dynamics, she tackles her role with a mix of curiosity and pragmatism from her home in Andorra.
April 30, 2024 | Lucila Senador
Behind the Product: SpotOn’s Ken Bazydola on Pioneering IoT Solutions
Ken Bazydola, Head of Product at SpotOn, shares insights from his career as an IoT product leader, including lessons learned from his time at Bose and Roomba, how SpotOn fosters product success, and why user insights drive great IoT experiences.
March 15, 2024 | Mateo Arizcorreta
Selecting an LLM for Your AI Product: How to Stay Flexible and Keep Evolving
Choosing the right large language model (LLM) is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your AI-powered product. In this article, we share guiding principles and a step-by-step approach to select the best LLM for your product and use cases.
January 24, 2024 | Lucila Senador
Sustain Excellence & Avoid Tech Debt: Tech20 Explained
At the heart of every robust technology platform is a well-thought-out approach to sustain technical health. Learn how our Tech20 approach helps software teams stay ahead and avoid common pitfalls for scalability and stability.
January 18, 2024 | Rafał Jamróz
The Whitespectre T-Shirt: A Visual History
The Whitespectre T-shirt has grown from a fun meetup experiment into a much-loved annual tradition and part of our company story. In this article, we take an in-depth look at our shirts over the years, as well as the meanings and design choices behind them.
December 22, 2023 | The Whitespectre Culture Team
Enhancing Workflows and Driving Sales with a Headless CMS Upgrade
In a highly contested space like e-commerce, choosing the right content management system (CMS) can make or break your business. We recently helped activewear brand Fabletics find and adopt the best CMS for their use case. The choice was a headless, composable CMS that has helped Fabletics speed up content management on its website, improving workflow efficiency by 75% and driving sales conversions.
November 14, 2023 | The Whitespectre Content Team
Unhidden Gems: 4 Highlights from Our Recent Ruby on Rails Sessions
Catch a glimpse of what we’ve recently covered on our Ruby on Rails team knowledge-sharing sessions. This is a selection of our latest exchanges on Monorepos, WebSockets, Rails 7 and Sidekiq.
November 9, 2023 | The Whitespectre Rails Team
Meet Inés Frías, Head of Delivery
It’s time to meet another bright mind working at Whitespectre! This time around, our Head of Delivery Inés Frías discusses her career path, and reflects on the importance of soft skills in tech as well as what makes a project successful.
October 25, 2023 | The Whitespectre Culture Team
No More Straight Paths: Rethinking the E-commerce User Journey for the Next Generation Shift
Discover how Gen Z’s unique e-commerce preferences are reshaping the shopping experience, why businesses must evolve beyond the traditional ‘funnel’ approach to craft non-linear, hyper-personalized, and authentic experiences, and how to get there.
October 18, 2023 | The Whitespectre Product Team
Emerging UI/UX Patterns in Generative AI: A Visual Guide
Explore the latest UI/UX patterns in the Generative AI space with insights from Whitespectre’s UI/UX design lead. From iconography, color, animation, labeling and more this guide delves into the key trends to consider when integrating Generative AI into your user experience.
September 27, 2023 | Andy Simpson
AI for Efficient Coding: What Engineering Leaders Need To Know
Considering adding AI-powered tools to your team's software development workflows? Get Whitespectre’s firsthand insights from experiments integrating AI tools to boost coding efficiency and effectiveness.
September 21, 2023 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
5 Best Under-The-Radar React Native Libraries in 2023: Dev Tested and Reviewed
Given our extensive use of React Native and recent community progress, we’re excited to delve into 5 under-the-radar but impactful React Native libraries that further bridge the gap to a native feel. Discover how these tools can enhance automated testing, upgrade animations, and streamline styling in your 2023 projects.
September 5, 2023 | The Whitespectre React Native Team
Meet Ana Babac, React Native Engineer
Ana shares her evolution from full stack to front-end engineer, working at Whitespectre on different software projects, and striking a balance between her many hobbies and training her playful Border Collie pup, Cora.
August 24, 2023 | The Whitespectre Culture Team
Building Offline-First React Native Apps with React Query and TypeScript
Offline-first React Native apps offer a responsive and seamless user experience even without internet connectivity. Using an example app, we’re going to share how you can boost their performance and reliability by leveraging React Query and TypeScript during development.
July 20, 2023 | Everaldo Rosa
Secure Software Development: A 3-Phase Battle-Tested Security Approach
When executed correctly, a structured security approach prevents costly breaches, fosters a security-first culture, and ensures the success of your software projects. Read on for insights, best practices, and actionable steps from our 3-phase, battle-tested strategy.
July 13, 2023 | The Whitespectre Backend Team
Smart Code Sharing for Streamlined React Development: An Inside Look
Maintaining efficiency and minimizing repetition in multi-platform development can be a challenge. Discover how we leaned into code reusability to accelerate development of an enterprise React Native application and how to use code sharing overall to fast track development and maximize efficiency.
July 5, 2023 | Eneko Sanz
Deploying AWS Lambdas Using GitHub Actions
AWS Lambda can offer unparalleled benefits as a serverless computing platform, but the manual deployment process can be complex and time-consuming, especially when dealing with multiple environments. Learn how we leverage GitHub Actions to deploy multiple AWS Lambda functions at once, dramatically improving our continuous deployment process.
May 2, 2023 | The Whitespectre JavaScript Team
Best Practices for Building Robust and Secure AWS Lambda Functions
Protecting a business from worst case scenarios is key when using a Lambda function to integrate a third-party event with a modern cloud application. We share best practices and the functionality you need to build a robust and secure production-ready Lambda function.
April 24, 2023 | The Whitespectre JavaScript Team
AbortController API: A Modern Approach to JavaScript Lifecycle Events
New JavaScript APIs, such as AbortController, are revolutionizing the way we write code by enhancing readability and maintainability. We share code examples of how you can use the AbortController API to improve code and simplify the event lifecycle management.
April 19, 2023 | The Whitespectre JavaScript Team
Integrating Real-World Data into Smart Contracts and Blockchain Applications with Chainlink
Learn how to use decentralized oracle network, Chainlink, to integrate real-world data into smart contracts and blockchain applications- beyond its usual DeFi use case.
March 14, 2023 | Marc Cámara
Supporting Multiple Modals in React Native: A New Approach
Managing multiple modals is a limitation seen in both React Native’s standard modal implementation and in popular third-party libraries. Learn how we came up with our own approach to address this, and how to use our rn-modal-presenter library.
January 9, 2023 | The Whitespectre React Native Team
Whitespectre x Onja: Bridging the Opportunity Gap in Tech
Sandy Raveloarisoa grew up in a small village in Madagascar with no internet access. She also just concluded a successful 1-year frontend fellowship at Whitespectre. Sandy came to Whitespectre as a graduate of Onja, an innovative social enterprise with a mission to bridge the opportunity gap in Tech. Read more to learn more about our partnership with Onja, Sandy’s journey, and her exciting year at Whitespectre.
December 29, 2022 | Yee Lin Thum
Frontend Updates: 2022 Highlights and Some Trends to Watch in 2023
Time has flown by. Take a look at what this year brought us in the frontend space with some highlights from one year of frontend updates and let us bring some predictions to the table!
December 23, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
An Exploration of RBS by Ruby: Is it Production-Ready?
Is RBS - a type annotation system introduced in Ruby 3 - production-ready? Find out as we share pros and cons, how to use it with plain Ruby or with Ruby on Rails, a comparison with Sorbet, and our recommendation.
December 7, 2022 | Hugo Farji
Building Native Modules for React Native with Kotlin and Swift
Forget Java and Objective-C. Instead, learn how to communicate with the native layer of your React Native app using Kotlin and Swift, using primitive and complex data types with promises.
December 2, 2022 | Jefferson Tavares de Pádua
November 2022 Frontend Updates: Turbopack, The Upcoming useEvent React Hook and Animated CSS Grid Layouts
This month we cover the release of Turbopack, the new frontend bundling tool, the upcoming useEvent React hook and animated CSS grid layouts in Chrome.
November 29, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
How Product Managers Can Empower Engineers in Stakeholder Conversations
Product Managers are good at engaging with stakeholders, it’s what we do. But with some strategic mentoring, we can help our engineering colleagues be more effective in stakeholder interactions.
November 3, 2022 | Ru McGuinness
October 2022 Frontend Updates: Data Fetching in React, CSS Container Queries and The Problems and Benefits of CSS-in-JS
This month we cover data fetching pitfalls in React when using useEffect and how to handle them, CSS Container Queries and the problems and benefits of CSS-in-JS.
October 28, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
How to Improve State Management in React with MobX
State management in React significantly impacts your project’s health and performance. Finding the solution that fits your project is getting more and more challenging. Learn why we migrated from React Hooks to MobX and the major performance benefits we achieved.
October 3, 2022 | Rui Lu
September 2022 Frontend Updates: React’s Render Cycle, Four Forgotten JavaScript APIs, Islands Architecture and Animated CSS Borders
What’s new with frontend development this month? This time we highlight the React’s render cycle, four interesting and useful JavaScript APIs you may not know about, the new Islands Architecture and animated CSS borders.
September 28, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
August 2022 Frontend Updates: SOLID Principles in TypeScript, Software Design Patterns, Focus Styles and Individual CSS Transform Properties
This month we cover SOLID principles in TypeScript, software design patterns for React applications, focus styles and the new individual CSS transform properties.
August 29, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Webhooks Using AWS Lambda and API Gateway
Learn how to handle real-time updates from 3rd parties via webhooks with highly scalable serverless AWS Lambda functions behind API Gateway.
August 24, 2022 | The Whitespectre Node.js Team
July 2022 Frontend Updates: React 18 Optimizations, the JavaScript Proxy Object and ECMAScript 2022
This month, the Whitespectre Frontend Team covers the newest React 18 features and hooks to optimize performance, the Proxy object in JavaScript and the new ECMAScript 2022 specification.
July 26, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Recursion vs Iteration: Different Approaches to Problem Solving
Code is a craft. You can solve the same problem in many ways, but some approaches are more readable, more maintainable, more robust and easier to extend. To illustrate this, Node.JS engineers Benjamin and Guillermo share and compare recursive and iterative approaches for a recent code challenge and custom DSL project.
July 12, 2022 | The Whitespectre Node.js Team
June 2022 Frontend Updates: Color Palettes and Typography, Animation, Accessibility Semantics with ARIA and the Internet Explorer Farewell
This month we talk about fonts and color palettes, automatic UI animations, a guide with the best practices for authoring ARIA by the W3C and some keys of the final farewell of IE.
June 27, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Is Your Data Secure in React Native? Why You Need SSL Pinning
Most React Native applications built today are going to be connected to a backend to access the information remotely. But do you know how to best protect against malicious attempts to hack your users' data? Let us show you how SSL Pinning can help.
June 9, 2022 | The Whitespectre React Native Team
May 2022 Frontend Updates: The State of CSS, Common Accessibility Issues, Text Wrapping and SVG!
This month we cover the State of CSS as seen at Google I/O, accessibility hints from the 2022 WebAIM Million report and some text wrapping and SVG tricks and techniques
May 23, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Managing Ruby on Rails SaaS Deployments with Monorepos
Can a monorepo approach turn the cumbersome workflow of a big SaaS into a more lightweight experience?
May 5, 2022 | The Whitespectre Rails Team
Moving to React Native and a Single Codebase: the Great, the Good and the Bad
In this article you’ll find how a single codebase can massively improve development productivity, why we’re big fans of React Native, and why it still might not be the right choice for your product.
April 19, 2022 | Jefferson Tavares de Pádua
April 2022 Frontend Updates: The Dialog Element, Priority Hints and Latest Releases
Discover native Dialogs, get started with the experimental Priority Hints and check out the last major React release!
April 18, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Ultrafast Serverless Sites: Our Cloudflare Pages Prototype
Test driving Cloudflare’s ambitious platform-as-a-service solution by creating a JAMstack-like application with their new Pages product.
April 13, 2022 | Alex Naumchuk
March 2022 Frontend Updates: SVG Favicons and New CSS Features
How to create adaptive and scalable favicons, great new CSS features, plus a glimpse on the new ones that are coming.
March 16, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
High-end Scroll Animations Made Simple
Animation can be a game-changer for user experience and it doesn’t have to be hard. Here’s an in-depth look at the tools and techniques we used to create scroll animations that show off the cutting-edge technology behind a new product.
March 15, 2022 | Daniel Albornoz
Meet Diogo Rosa, Tech Lead
Diogo dives into his path from developer to tech lead, his favorite technical challenges, and what it’s like being part of the backend engineering team at Whitespectre.
March 1, 2022 | The Whitespectre Culture Team
February 2022 Frontend Updates: The State of JavaScript, React 18 and monorepos!
Highlights from the annual State of JavaScript survey, Concurrent features and the Suspense component in React 18, and the best tools to manage JavaScript monorepos
February 16, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Skeleton Screens for Better Loading in React
Skeleton loading is a surprisingly easy and impactful way to improve user experience. In this post, we’ll share a real-life example and our own React proof of concept to get you started.
January 26, 2022 | Eneko Sanz
January 2022 Frontend Updates: Next Gen Tooling, Server Side Rendering, latest React Conferences and more!
The first of a monthly series of posts with compilations of the latest news and trends in the frontend development space. New year, new tools, new habits!
January 12, 2022 | The Whitespectre Engineering Team
Why Green Hosting Matters: The Major Environmental Impact of Data Hosting and How We Can Fix It (Digital Sustainability - Part 3)
Making greener choices related to technology infrastructure is crucial to reduce the negative impact on our environment. In the last installment of our three-part series on digital sustainability, we explore why and how companies can choose more sustainable options for data hosting and beyond.
December 13, 2021 | Anastasia Moneva
Meet Eneko Sanz, Senior React Engineer
Agile, integrated, flexible – just a few of the words that Eneko uses to describe aspects of his daily life at Whitespectre.
November 30, 2021 | The Whitespectre Culture Team
Why is Digital Sustainability Important? (Digital Sustainability - Part 2)
Building Digital Products for a Greener Planet
April 1, 2021 | Anastasia Moneva
How the Book “World Wide Waste” Helped Me Reduce My Digital Footprint (Digital Sustainability - Part 1)
February 25, 2021 | Anastasia Moneva
12 Core Principles for Premium Quality UX Design
Part Three of a Four-Part Series About UX Design.
October 30, 2020 | Ivan Pla
What Do UX Designers Actually Do?
Part One of a Four-Part Series About UX Design
September 20, 2020 | Ivan Pla
Why Iteration Beats Innovation When it Comes to Product Process
When it comes to product management process, repetition and iteration are just as important as the process itself.
September 15, 2020 | Daniel Taylor
Overcoming Common Pitfalls When Creating Apps for Bluetooth Devices
Developing mobile apps that are companions for bluetooth-supported ‘smart products’ is a challenging undertaking - especially when the app continuously receives and pushes data back to the Bluetooth device. So how can product managers, developers, and designers overcome these challenges for a great user experience?
September 2, 2020 | Lucila Senador
How To Upgrade Your Digital Business for the New Normal
June 22, 2020 | Joan Massana
How to Create a Product Roadmap Your Stakeholders Will Actually Use
The more conceptual and thematic a roadmap gets, the more difficult it becomes for the rest of the business to use. So how can you create a product roadmap that’s useful to both product teams and business stakeholders?
April 17, 2020 | Daniel Taylor
GatsbyJS: What’s All the Fuss About?
Vitaliy Stanyshevskyy recently shared his experiences with GatsbyJS, an open source framework for building super fast websites. Many developers may have heard of GatsbyJS, as it has been making waves in the coding world of late. So what is all the fuss about?
November 1, 2019 | Vitaliy Stanyshevskyy
Brown Bag: Introduction to Deep Learning
The field of artificial intelligence, is developing at a rapid pace, with the world’s biggest technology companies in a race to harness its potential. Currently both Apple and Google are developing driverless car projects and major enhancements to their voice-driven assistant platforms (Siri and Alexa), that are powered by AI. Deep learning is one of the most important aspects, if not the most important, in the development of this artificial intelligence. As part of a recent brown bag session, Tiago Vieira gave a presentation about deep learning, how it can be used in a variety of products, and the common pitfalls when implementing this technology.
October 1, 2019 | Tiago Vieira
Using Stylish to Develop iOS Apps
Lucas explains the issues around developing apps, current solutions (as provided by Apple), and the benefits of the Swift-based framework, STYLiSH.
August 14, 2019 | Lucas Diez
PostgreSQL’s coolest features and how you can apply them
A popular database management system, PostgreSQL is an open source and robust piece of software that is also very versatile. During a recent brown bag session, Adrian Serafin introduced us to some of his favorite features in PostgreSQL with working examples of how to apply them.
July 25, 2019 | Adrian Serafin
Whitespectre Site migration to Hugo
July 1, 2019 | Daniel Albornoz
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