Rob Wells

About Me

Hi there! I'm Rob Wells, and I build stuff that people use and enjoy. With over 12 years in product engineering, I've developed a knack for rapidly delivering solutions that users love by combining technical skill with user-centered design.

Over the past decade, I've had the privilege of working in and leading engineering across diverse environments, from founding my own company to fast-moving startups. Along the way, I've built the UK's first investment app for women (in just 3 months!), led development on the UK's highest-grossing children's app, and built the world's first educational marketplace where you can purchase by learning, which won an award for the Best AI Solution as part of The EdTech Awards. And as a published author, my book Unity By Example has been recognized among the Best Unity Books of All Time, reaching over 30,000 readers.

Fast-forward to today, and I've launched over 30 products from concept to market, reaching millions of users worldwide.

Want to build something together? Let's chat!

My Toolkit

Programming Languages

C#TypeScriptJavaScriptC++JavaObjective-C

Backend

.NETExpress.jsNode.jsREST APIsMicroservicesEvent driven architecture

Mobile Development

React NativeFlutteriOSAndroid

Front-end

ReactNext.jsASP.NET CoreJekyllGatsbyHTMLCSSSASSTailwind

Databases

FirestoreMongoDBPostgreSQLSQL

Where I've Worked

Head of Engineering @ Propelle

Apr 2024 - Present

Built and launched a cross-platform investment app in 3 months, managing mobile (React Native) and backend (.NET) development to meet tight timelines.
Recruited a high-performing engineering team from 0 to 3 members to deliver projects on schedule.
Established CI/CD pipelines, reducing deployment time by 80% and decreasing production issues by 30%.
Designed scalable data infrastructure for real-time analytics, reducing manual data processing by 90% and enabling data-driven decisions.
Boosted user conversion rates by 18% through A/B testing and optimising key app flows, including onboarding and paywall.
Conducted customer interviews to identify user needs and pain points, resulting in targeted improvements that raised retention rates by 10%.
Led strategic partnerships with vendors, integrating key APIs and services, reducing time to market by 3 weeks.

Tech Advisory Board Member @ Packt

Mar 2024 - Present

Provide strategic direction on emerging technologies and industry best practices to shape the publishing content roadmap.
Lead quarterly advisory sessions to evaluate market shifts, assess portfolio gaps, and recommend high-demand topics for future publications.
Review and provide critical feedback on book outlines ensuring alignment with current technology practices and user needs.
Collaborate with authors and editors to refine technical content, ensuring accuracy and alignment with Packt’s business and educational goals.

Head | VP of Engineering @ Prickly Bear

Apr 2022 - Apr 2024

Led successful launch of 6 mobile apps and 100+ product updates, resulting in a 200% increase in user adoption and 40% day 7 retention.
Rapidly scaled the Engineering team from 0 to 12 Engineers, across Frontend, Mobile, Backend, and QA; enabling delivery of key milestones.
Diversified revenue streams across mobile and web, doubling company revenue.
Established DevOps culture and implemented CI/CD stack, reducing deployment time by 80%, enabling multiple daily deployments.
Led pivotal tech migrations: Flutter to Unity and Monolithic to Microservices, resulting in a 95% increase in app stability and reducing server response time from 700ms to 400ms.

Software Engineering Manager @ Sandbox Kids

May 2020 - Apr 2022

Led client-side tech stack merger following acquisition of US kids companies Curious World and Kidomi, resulting in substantial cost savings of 4k p/m through service and framework consolidation.
Built and managed recruitment pipeline, expanding team by 40%.
Led the Engineering teams transition to remote, implementing processes and tools, reducing context-switching, and increasing the time engineers spent writing code by 1–2 hours daily.
Implemented a comprehensive career progression framework, fostering continuous improvement, coaching, feedback, and performance assessment to enhance staff retention.

Senior Software Engineer @ Hopster

Mar 2019 - May 2020

Led development of games that topped engagement metrics with over 15,000 impressions in week 1.
Created a partner authentication framework, resulting in a 70% reduction in integration time through effective collaboration with external partners.
Implemented a data-driven, re-usable games engine enabling the Design team to update game functionality via a CMS, reducing time to market by 40%.
Streamlined code review process and established best practices for a team of 5 engineers, reducing average code review turnaround from days to hours.
Defined best practices within the broader Engineering team, including introducing Unit tests, building a CI/CD stack to reduce deployment time by 80%, and ensuring documentation creation was baked into tickets to increase knowledge sharing.

Some Things I've Worked On

Featured Project
Propelle: UK's first investment app for Women
Propelle exists to help women build long term wealth through a combination of education, community and investment products. Women are less likely to invest their money than men. Over half (52%) of UK women have never owned any investments, versus 37% of men. Propelle aims to fix that.
- Typescript
- React Native
- C#
- .Net
- GCP
- Postgres
Learn More
Featured Project
Prickly Bear: The Kid Store
The only place where in the world where you can purchase things by learning. An experiment in using extrinsic motivation to kick off a life long love of learning. Winner of the “Best AI Solution” in the EdTech Awards for our AI game generator.
- C#
- ExpressJS
- Typescript
- GCP
- Firebase
- Flutter
- Python
- MongoDB
Featured Project
Unity By Example
I wrote a book! Learn Unity game development with C# through a series of practical projects ranging from building a simple 2D game to adding AR/VR experiences and machine learning. Available for purchase at Amazon and Waterstones. Published by Packt and read by 30000+ people.
- Unity
- C#
- AR
- VR
- ML
Learn More
Featured Project
Hopster
The number one grossing app for children in the UK. Launched in over 100 countries globally, including South Africa and even Saudi Arabia, and has over 1m downloads.
- C++
- Python
- JS
- Obj-C
- Java
Learn More

Other Noteworthy Projects

view the archive

Unannounced Personal Project
It's exciting. It's educational. It scratches my itch building engaging meaningful products. But that's all I can say for now...
- NextJs
- C++
- Firebase
Coding Safari
One of the most popular kids coding apps in the UK. Coding Safari has been featured App of the day several times in many countries including UK and US.
- C++
- Obj-c
- Java
- Python
Curious World
Awards: Kidscreen Best Learning Apps & Best Game App (Smartphone), Teachers’ Choice Awards for the Family, National Parenting Product Awards, Cynopsis Kids Imagination Awards – Tablet-Based App
- Swift
- Objective-C
- Firebase

What’s Next?

Get In Touch

My inbox is always open. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, I’ll try my best to get back to you!

Say Hello