My Experience as a Flutter Developer at Block Pool Technologies Private Limited building Slick.

Name: Rithik Bhandari

Mentor Name: Rachit Bansal (CTO)

Contents

• Introduction
• Tools & Technologies
• Project: Slick
  - About
  - Screenshots
  - Current Progress
  - Responsibilities & Tasks
• Learning Outcomes

Introduction

• ”Block Pool Technologies Private Limited” is an unlisted private company incorporated on 23 June, 2022.
• The company is located in Bangalore, Karnataka.
• Block Pool Technologies Private Limited has two directors — Rachit Bansal and Archit Nanda.
• I am currently working as a Flutter Developer and leading the project’s frontend development.

Tools & Technologies

• Flutter: Used for developing cross-platform mobile applications from a single codebase.
• AWS: The cloud service provider used to host the backend server, and a lot more.
• NestJS: A framework that helps building NodeJS server-side applications.
• Postman: A tool used for testing APIs and developing automated API tests.
• Amplitude: A product analytics platform that helps businesses to understand how users are interacting with their products or services.
• Slack: A messaging app used to connect team members, bringing people together to work as a team.
• Firebase: A set of hosting services for any type of application. It offers features such as social authentication, notifications etc.
• Google Analytics: A tool used for tracking user behavior and monitoring website/app traffic.
• Git: Used to manage source code and collaborate with team members.
• Figma: Used to share designs, files with the team members ahead of the actual implementation.

Project: Slick

__________________

Get Slick for Android.

Get Slick for iOS.

About

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• Slick is a safe space for you to praise your friends and cultivate bonds. It is an anonymous social media platform where friends can compliment each other on a set of questions, allowing them to know each what the other one thinks of them better.
• The person receiving the drip (A person receives a drip when he/she is selected by their friend in a question) can see who selected them by either using the free hints/reveals, by paying a one time fee for reveal, or buying the premium membership which comes with it’s own set of perks.
• Premium users can even use anonymous mode, with which they can hide their identity, and the other person cannot see who selected them in that question.
• This sums up the core idea for the app, of course there is plenty more in the app like the user can see what drips there friends are receiving, edit their profile, update their name, add friends, etc.
• Recently, we announced “Jiffs”, where in your friends create your profile. What this basically means is, users can click pictures of their friends, and tag them. The tagged users can either accept or reject the photos on their profile, accepting them will add the clicked photos to their profile, which will be visible to his/her friends. Users can react with emojis, and add comments on Jiffs.

Screenshots

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Current Progress

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• The app is live on Google Play Store with over 5lakh+ downloads and an average rating of 4.2 across 4.3k reviews.
• The app is live on Apple App Store ranked at #12 currently across all Social Networking apps in India (#7 being the highest), having an average rating of 4.3 across 1.3k ratings.
• The app currently has around 900k+ users.

Responsibilities & Tasks

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• Being one of the founding developers, I was assigned the task of building this app from scratch. Used Flutter, a cross-platform app development framework to build the app for both Android and iOS from a single codebase, reducing the development time and costs by half.
• Implemented features such as Authentication with phone number using Firebase for OTP verification, State Management using BLoC pattern, Firebase integration, Amplitude analytics to analyse user flows, and make decisions based on that, Crashlytics to see crashes/insights on how the app behaves on different devices.
• Collaborated with the design team to create a new user interface design that was more user-friendly and visually appealing.
• The day-to-day activities included fixing bugs, optimising user experiences by analysing data from the active users’ by finding possible drop-offs, issues etc.
• Enhanced the app’s functionality by decreasing loading duration and optimizing memory utilization, creating an energy-efficient app that operates with minimal battery consumption while still delivering optimal performance.
• Researched and implemented new technologies and tools to enhance the app’s functionality and improve the development process.
• Implemented various new features, and analysed crashes that the users have faced across thousands of devices and making fixes so that the app works as intended on all devices.

Learning Outcomes

• Using Flutter to build cross-platform applications.
• Creating pixel-perfect UI from design documents.
• Working in a team, understanding the need of proper communication.
• Using Firebase to track application errors/crashes across the thousands of devices in the market and deliver crash-free experiences.
• Ability to write clean, maintainable code using best practices and design patterns.
• Development of leadership skills, including the ability to motivate and inspire others, delegate tasks, and make effective decisions.
• Integration of different payment gateways in the application such as Razorpay, PhonePe, InApp purchases from the Google Play and Apple Stores.
• Enhanced critical thinking and analytical skills, including the ability to interpret and evaluate information, identify patterns, and draw meaningful conclusions.
• Improved my soft skills such as communication, punctuality and time management.
• Knowledge of version control tools like Git to manage source code.
• Working with GitHub actions to prepare release builds like APK’s and uploading apps on the Play Store and App Store.
• Development of a strong work ethic, including professionalism, integrity, and accountability.