Nick Barfoot

Senior Software Developer
 
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Career

Me

Senior iOS Engineer with 12+ years of expertise in building large-scale mobile applications. Specialized in Swift, SwiftUI, and MVVM architecture, with deep experience in performance optimization and scalable architectures. Led the complete rewrite of NHL's iOS platform serving 15M+ monthly active users. Passionate about technical mentorship and fostering cross-functional collaboration between engineering, product, and design teams.
Apps

Career

Lightspeed Commerce
Lightspeed Commerce
Senior Software Engineer (iOS) Current
Led development of new features, bug fixes, maintenance and testing for Lightspeed's iOS Hospitality platform.
Swift SwiftUI Objective-C
Lightspeed Commerce Preview Visit lightspeedhq.com →
NHL
Official NHL App
Senior iOS Engineer → Lead iOS Engineer
Led a team of 6 engineers on the complete rewrite of the NHL's flagship iOS platform. Drove cross-functional collaboration with design, Android, QA, and product teams to ensure consistent feature integration and UI/UX across platforms. Established engineering excellence achieving 99.9% crash-free rate through robust review & QA processes. Implemented comprehensive accessibility features including screen reading and dynamic text support.
Swift SwiftUI MVVM Firebase Analytics
NHL App Preview View on App Store →
Slack
Slack
Senior iOS Engineer, Network Mobile (Slack Connect)
Led architecture and implementation of Slack Connect Guidelines, enabling administrators to provide guidance content for external organization collaboration. Responsible for design documentation, project planning, feature stories, and implementation PRs. Drove feature development from conception through deployment using feature flags and comprehensive testing.
Swift UIKit Feature Flags
Slack Preview Visit slack.com →
Square
Square
Senior iOS Engineer, Mobile Performance & Services
Developed company-wide A/B experimentation client used across all Square vertical apps (Retail, Restaurants, POS). Architected next-generation crash reporting infrastructure, migrating all Square vertical apps to Bugsnag. Led successful migration from Objective-C to Swift while improving stability and reducing codebase size. Implemented push notification acknowledgment system with metadata tracking.
Swift Objective-C Bugsnag A/B Testing
Square Preview Visit squareup.com →
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My Apps

My Apps

PWHL Fan
PWHL Fan
Founder, Principal Developer
Created a comprehensive fan app for the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) featuring live scores, Live Activities, push notifications, detailed statistics, team standings, schedules, rosters, video content, and more. This app serves fans of the new professional women's hockey league.
Swift SwiftUI
PWHL Fan App Promotional Image Visit pwhlfanapp.com →
Hollywood Duos
Hollywood Duos
Founder, Principal Developer
Developed an entertainment discovery app that helps users find hidden connections between actors in movies and TV shows. The app features cross-referencing capabilities, shuffle mode, the "Bacon Game" (inspired by Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon), daily challenges, and other interactive features for movie and TV enthusiasts.
Swift SwiftUI
Hollywood Duos App Promotional Image Visit hollywoodduos.com →
PopKey
PopKey
Founding Engineer, iOS & Full Stack
Founding developer of viral GIF keyboard platform, scaling to over 100k daily active users. Architected and developed initial version of the app, keyboard extension, and server-side REST API services. Led v2 API specification and implementation. Successfully migrated from Objective-C to Swift, improving architecture with CocoaPods dependency management. Featured in TechCrunch and praised by Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke as "iOS8's killer feature."
Swift Objective-C PHP Realm
PopKey App Demo
Made My Day
Made My Day
Founder, Principal Developer
A social site dedicated to people sharing what made their day. Created for web + iOS 5.0.
PHP MySQL Objective-C
Made My Day App Preview

Concert & Live Event Photography

Over 20 years of concert and live event photography, capturing the energy and artistry of performers across Ontario's music scene. Featured at major venues including Phoenix Concert Theatre, The Danforth Music Hall, and countless festivals throughout the province.

Live concert performance with dramatic stage lighting and musician on guitar
Concert crowd with hands raised during energetic live music performance
Solo artist performing acoustic guitar in intimate venue setting
Band performing on stage with colorful concert lighting effects
Acoustic performer in warm stage lighting during live concert
Close-up of musician performing with dramatic concert photography lighting
View Ontario Scene

Recording & Mixing

Independent music production featuring original compositions, recording, mixing and mastering.

Alan Parsons, legendary music producer and engineer, in recording studio
Professional mixing console and studio equipment for music production
Collection of original album covers showcasing diverse musical projects
Nick Barfoot with Andrew Scheps, Grammy-winning mixing engineer, in professional recording studio
Visit 1204 Recordings Listen on Spotify

Testimonials

Recording & Mixing

"Working with Nick on our EP was a great experience. I never thought that recording could be so enjoyable! The sessions were not stressful or burdensome, but instead, they were full of positivity and something we looked forward to.

He was so open to our ideas when it came to mixing and production and he really let us get involved in the recording process. He managed to capture the instruments perfectly from vocals to violin, and he has a very intuitive sense of balance, allowing everyone's musical contributions come through beautifully.

With Nick, you really get the sense that you are working with someone who is invested in the final product, and he really puts the satisfaction of the band above all else. After a few sessions, I started to feel like he was in the band - he seemed to care just as much about the music as we did! I am so thankful that we got to work with Nick on this project, he is a great person to work with from a professional standpoint, and after this experience, I also consider him as a musical collaborator and friend."

"Recording my song with Nick was an amazing process. Not only is he an extremely talented producer, he brings enthusiasm to each session and makes the recording process a lot of fun. Nick provided a lot of helpful insight and understands how to create quality sound. Whether you're a beginner or a professional musician, I'd highly recommend working with Nick!"

Career

"I had the privilege of managing and working with Nick Barfoot during his tenure at Slack, and he consistently impressed me with his technical abilities, strong work ethic, and ability to collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical team members.

Nick jumps deep into problems and does very thorough research to make sure to understand key technical, design, and business details. While working with Nick, I found him to bring a pragmatic approach to his work. In practice, this meant that he proactively proposed various solutions to edge cases that took both time and complexity into account. This was really helpful for the kind of projects we were working on, at Slack.

In addition to his technical contributions, Nick is a friendly and collaborative teammate who genuinely cares about the people and team processes around him. I wholeheartedly endorse Nick for any future iOS role and I would be very happy to have the opportunity to work with him again in the future."

— Jesse, Staff Software Engineer at Slack

"I worked with Nick for 3 years at Canvaspop/WorkshopX. During our time working together I saw Nick grow his skills tremendously, pushing himself to learn new technologies and champion new projects, the most impressive being PopKey.

Nick was the founding iOS engineer on the PopKey project and worked incredibly hard to build and launch it successfully. Given that Nick was a back-end PHP engineer at Canvaspop when I started, the jump to fullstack and further into mobile app development was not something anyone could easily undertake yet Nick did it with ease.

Beyond his considerable development talents, Nick is a great musician and music producer and dedicated friend. Any team would be lucky to have him."

— Fraser, VP of Software Development

"Nick is wonderful to work with, is highly motivated, forward-thinking and continues to constantly push his skillsets to new levels. Nick always went above and beyond in everything he did, proving his high dedication to our teams success.

Nicks hard work, dedication and insightful product design was the driving factor to the success of many large projects under the WorkshopX umbrella. PopKey would not have been the success it was without his leadership on the project. Every team needs a Swiss Army knife named Nick!"

— Paul, Director of Engineering

"Nick is a SOLID, thoughtful, common-sense engineer. I had the pleasure working with him for several years. He has experience with a variety of frameworks and architectures which makes him an instant asset to any organization.

He pushes for results (which are always top notch), cares deeply about his work and his craft (well beyond the work day). Nick is a constant learner. He is never afraid to pick up new tools and patterns, and is quick to grow his tool belt. Nick powers through tough problems and doesn't ever seem to give up.

He also possesses some serious musical talent. His artistic thinking and mastery of guitar carry over into his engineering making him an even more insightful problem solver."

— Andrew, Senior iOS Engineer/Engineering Manager

"Nick and I have worked closely together for 1.5 years., he takes pride in the work he does and goes the extra mile to ensure delivery is the best it can be. I could also rely on Nick to find missing gaps on requirements, talk to the product owners and manage releases on his own.

One of the things I truly appreciated while working with Nick is that he likes to understand the business case of a given feature prior to development starting, he's organized and will ensure the pieces are put together before he commits to a delivery. Your company will gain a lot by having Nick on the team!"

— Manuel, Engineering Manager