AfCircle Case Study: Shipping a Full Flutter Social Platform Solo
What it took to architect and ship AfCircle’s Flutter app—from multimedia UX to Shorebird patch delivery.
My favourite moment is the one right before the first commit—the repo is empty, the product pitch is still half in Notion, and someone needs to decide how this thing will actually ship. I love starting the codebase, sketching the module map, wiring CI, and writing the README the next engineer will lean on. I pair closely with founders, PMs, and designers to pick the battles, trim scope, and keep the first build fast without burying future velocity.
AfCircle is the latest example. The founders called on a Friday; by Sunday night I'd pushed the initial Flutter skeleton, named the packages, and left comments for the next day's standup. Over the following weeks I carved Kotlin camera pipelines so creators could film reels without dropped frames, threaded in an AI assistant that handled 40% of community replies, and shipped enough patches through Shorebird to keep 1,000 daily users happy inside three months.
I'm looking for a full-time remote seat with a team that spans time zones—North America, Europe, LATAM, MENA, APAC, anywhere people care about craft. If you need a founding-style Flutter engineer who can spin up the repo, coach the crew, and keep async updates honest, let's talk.
Flutter
Dart
Kotlin & Java (Android Native)
Platform Channels (Kotlin/Swift)
GetX & Bloc
Provider Patterns
Firebase
Shorebird OTA
AI Copilots
Git/GitHub
Remote-first Flutter leadership, embedding within product teams to scale mobile delivery (click a card to learn more)
AfCircle • Remote • Global Timezones
Dec 2024 - Present
Single-handedly shipped AfCircle end to end: product discovery, Flutter mobile client (GetX, Shorebird), Kotlin/Swift platform channels for media encoding, AI assistant workflows, and release automation—backed by lightweight Laravel + Firebase services when needed. Supported 1,000+ active users within 90 days with continuous patch delivery.
HOP VPN • Remote
Apr 2025 - Jun 2025
Stepped in as interim mobile lead for a Web3 VPN startup: architected the Flutter client, built Kotlin native modules for VPN tunnelling, implemented realtime telemetry, and guided investor demo delivery within six weeks.
AtopWebTech • Sweden (Contract-to-hire)
Apr 2024 - Aug 2024
Led Flutter MVP rebuild for a venture-backed AI companion app, integrating Gemini AI, slashing render times by 40% through GetX-driven state management, and exposing device ML features via platform-specific code.
Airstyl • South Africa
Jan 2024 - Apr 2024
Shipped social-commerce MVP with chat, live calls, and Paystack payments for a YC Startup School alum, enabling 100+ daily transactions within the first launch month.
I'm Samuel Odukoya—an electronics-and-computer-engineering grad who fell down the software rabbit hole during Harvard's CS50 back in 2015. I stubbornly stuck with mobile because I liked seeing ideas land in people's hands. The early days were pure Kotlin and Java, plenty of late-night logcat sessions, and a healthy respect for platform-specific quirks.
Flutter arrived in 2019 and instantly felt like the right canvas. I shipped my first production Flutter app that same year, learned how far you can push declarative UI before you need a platform channel, and started pairing the framework with Laravel, Firebase, or Next.js whenever the product needed extra muscle. Since then I've helped launch social apps, AI copilots, and fintech tools for teams spread across Lagos, Stockholm, Cape Town, and Austin.
When I join a team, I spin up the repo, write the first tests, set up the release pipeline, and make sure the README actually explains how to get a build running. I keep check-ins async-friendly, drop Loom videos for tricky flows, and leave behind docs so the next engineer doesn't need to DM me at 2 a.m. I'm the person who nudges design, product, and analytics into the same thread so we catch issues before sprint review.
Outside commits, you'll probably find me watching F1 replays or sketching UI ideas with a mechanical pencil—old habits from the hardware days. Professionally, I'm searching for a full-time remote team that wants a founding-style Flutter lead who can own the mobile roadmap, jump into Kotlin/Swift when the platform demands it, and keep the rest of the stack humming alongside the app.
What it took to architect and ship AfCircle’s Flutter app—from multimedia UX to Shorebird patch delivery.
How I structure Flutter codebases so founders can ship faster without painting themselves into a corner.
How complementary Laravel + Redis services keep AfCircle’s Flutter app realtime without slowing the mobile roadmap.