About

I'm an engineer, not a designer. If something I made looks good, someone who knew what they were doing showed me how. What I actually care about is code that's clean, modular, and still readable at 2am by whoever inherits it, which is usually future me.

Tech Lead at ustwo, based in Malmö, about 15 years in. Started on mobile, wandered into backend, kept the whole picture in view.

How I got here

I built my first Android app in 2010, for my final-year project at Binghamton, back when Android was still version one-point-something. I've been hooked ever since.

I've always been curious about places and cultures, too. I lived in the US and Canada and never much wanted to sit still. In 2017 an opportunity in Sweden showed up, so I took it. Malmö is home now, and the place I want my kids to grow up.

I've never been scared of unfamiliar tech. "We need someone on the backend, it's Java" landed on me once, and I figured: I've done Java, I'll try. I picked up Flutter about the week it became usable. When a new project came around, I pushed for TypeScript specifically because it was the thing I hadn't conquered yet.

Somewhere along the way I moved from writing code to leading people, which is where I think I do the most good. I'm comfortable with conflict, and I'll tell you what I actually think. Consider it a feature.

What I believe

Code is written for humans, not computers. Boring code the next person can read beats clever code only I understand.
TDD, always. Writing the code was never the slow part; QA and maintenance are. That is where the time comes back.
Clean architecture, applied where it earns its keep, not followed like scripture.
New tech is not a threat. It is the fun part.

Currently

currently {

building apps and backends with AI, not to write my code for me, but to find out what is actually worth building
renovating my house myself, because labor is expensive here, so I bought the tools and became my own carpenter
researching everything to death before buying it (I do not even drink hot coffee, but I can out-talk most people on beans and grinders)

}

The CV, abridged

Currently Tech Lead for backend and Android at ustwo. Previously senior and lead Android roles at tretton37, Yemeksepeti, and Softtech, plus early startup work and mainframe days at Garanti. The full timeline lives on LinkedIn.

Stack: Android, Kotlin, Compose, Flutter, KMM · Java, TypeScript, Node, NestJS · TDD, CI/CD, Clean Architecture
Studied: MA Business Information Systems, Boğaziçi · BS Information Systems Engineering, Binghamton & Istanbul Technical

Elsewhere

GitHub · LinkedIn · ilkinartuc@proton.me · Malmö, Sweden