Ben Reed
Mobile engineer and solution architect, building in production since 2006. Fifteen years of iOS and Android, from agency work at Mubaloo to leading mobile in NHS healthcare software, and a year building Kanora with AI agents and the process that keeps them honest.
Current focus
Building with agents at the scale of a real product. Kanora is seven surfaces, mostly written by Claude Code and Codex, and the method that keeps that trustworthy is becoming Gatehouse, a toolkit any project can install.
- Tooling: Claude Code as the primary harness, Codex alongside, both running the same loop
- Structure: specs, plans and skills, with human gates at each step
- Quality: fresh-context reviewers and a verification gate that cannot report a green it did not see
- Range: the same process took Kanora from Apple platforms to a native Android client in two weeks
Speed with intent
Faster iteration without lowering the bar.
Small tools
Lean systems that stay easy to run and maintain.
Human-reviewed
Assistants help; I still own the outcome.
What I do
I design and build software with a focus on clarity, ownership, and real-world use.
My background is in native iOS development, but my work now sits at the intersection of product thinking, architecture, and AI-assisted development. I don't just write code — I design systems that can evolve, scale, and be understood months or years later.
I use tools like Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and Cursor heavily, but not in a “press a button and ship” way. They're useful for getting ideas into code quickly, but they still need direction, constraints, and someone making the calls. That's where most of the work is — defining the problem properly, setting boundaries, and making sure what comes out is something you'd actually want to maintain.
A big part of how I work is building structure around that process — reusable prompts, agent “skills”, and clear guardrails so the output is consistent and production-ready rather than throwaway. If anything, the whole “stay hungry, stay foolish” idea from Steve Jobs feels more relevant here than it probably should — AI makes it very easy to try things quickly, but also very easy to build a lot of nonsense if you're not paying attention.
I'm particularly interested in offline-first, privacy-focused applications and systems that give users ownership of their data. For personal projects, that's also a very deliberate choice — I'm not interested in maintaining backend stacks, user databases, or dealing with compliance and data overhead. I get enough of that in day-to-day work. I'd rather build things that are fast, local, and simple to run.
At a higher level, I care about building things properly: clean architecture over quick hacks, maintainability over novelty, and shipping useful software over chasing trends.
Skills
Experience is shown as a signal meter, reflecting practical confidence in day-to-day delivery.
iOS and Apple platforms (Swift & Objective-C)
Fifteen years of production iOS, from Objective-C to SwiftUI, plus macOS, watchOS, tvOS and CarPlay through Kanora: architecture, concurrency, audio, networking and delivery.
Agent-first development
Claude Code and Codex as the main way code gets written, inside a process I designed: specs, plans, fresh-context reviewers and a verification gate that cannot fake a pass.
Android (Kotlin & Java)
Shipped Android since the agency years, owned the Android app for an NHS clinical communication platform, and built Kanora's native client in Kotlin with Jetpack Compose, Media3 and Room.
Web and backend
Vue 3 and TypeScript on the front end, .NET 8 on Azure behind it: I designed and built the encrypted audio capture service and real-time voice UI for an ambient AI product.
Design
Strong across both interaction design and software architecture decisions.
Planning and documentation
Clear planning and structured documentation to keep delivery aligned and maintainable.
Customer-facing communication
Confident collaborating with stakeholders, translating technical detail into clear product direction.
Debugging and investigation
Methodical debugging and root-cause investigation, especially in complex production workflows.
Leading teams
Led teams of five and nine developers at Mubaloo, and act as development manager in healthcare software today.
Where I've been
Twenty years across agencies, products, and healthcare. Same thread: ship thoughtfully and own the outcome.
Lead Front End Developer and acting Development Manager
Healthcare software
Designed and built both halves of an ambient AI clinical documentation product: a multi-tenant .NET 8 audio capture service on Azure with end-to-end AES-256-GCM encryption and a speech token broker, and the full Vue 3 voice front end with live speaker-separated transcription, voice-command dictation, system-audio mixing for phone and video consultations, and a pipeline that never loses or reorders a slice.
Senior iOS Developer
Healthcare software
Built the iOS app for an NHS clinical communication platform from the ground up on a mature Azure-backed service. It is used inside around 20 NHS trusts with 8,000 to 10,000 active sessions a day. I adopted the Android app when it needed an owner, and automated distribution for both with Fastlane and GitHub CI.
Head of Mobile
Healthcare start-up
Joined a clinical communication start-up to rebuild its mobile app, and set the mobile roadmap with the product owner and CEO.
Web Developer → iOS Team Lead → Head of Technology
Mubaloo
The years when we shipped on everything: iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and mobile web. I led a web team of five, then nine native iOS developers, then set the agency's technical direction. Clients included Bang & Olufsen, Endemol Games, Aviva, Allianz, DHL, UBS and the NHS.
Web & Multimedia Developer
Sift
Drupal, Flash and bespoke CMS work, including client sites for The Kennel Club and the NHS.
BSc Multimedia Computing, First Class
University of the West of England
Graduated first class while already shipping production software.
The slightly longer story
I started building software professionally in 2006 during a placement year at Sift Group while studying at the University of the West of England. Back then it was custom CMS work, Drupal development, and Flash. I graduated with a First Class degree in 2008, but by then I'd already been working for two years on sites for clients like The Kennel Club and the NHS.
In 2010 I joined Mubaloo and entered mobile development at full tilt: iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian. I started on mobile web, moved into native iOS, led a team of nine iOS developers, and became Head of Technology, supporting pitches and delivery for brands including Bang & Olufsen, UBS, DHL, William Hill, Aviva and Allianz.
Agency life rarely let projects run to completion. In 2015 I joined a clinical communication start-up as Head of Mobile, built its iOS app from the ground up, and stayed with the product through an acquisition into a larger healthcare software company, where I still work today. The app now runs inside around 20 NHS trusts with thousands of active sessions every day, and I picked up Android and the release automation along the way.
More recently I designed and built the audio capture service and real-time voice front end for an ambient AI product that records and transcribes clinical consultations. Outside work, I've spent the last year building Kanora, a music platform for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, CarPlay, Apple TV and Android, almost entirely with AI agents, and learning that the hard part is not getting code written but keeping the record, the rules and the verification honest.
I'm as much an architect as a developer: map the structure, respect the edge cases, then build so the next person doesn't pay for today's hurry.
For a long time I had more ideas than evenings, and life and family meant the bigger side projects stayed in my head. AI changed the economics of it, and building the process around it has become as interesting to me as the apps themselves.