How to Become an iOS Developer
- Matthew Thomas
- May 23, 2025
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 18
How to Become an iOS Developer
This article was written by a senior iOS Developer who has been working in the tech industry for 15 years writing, editing and rewriting commercial iOS apps on the AppStore. I am now a consultant and provide my services for a daily rate of $500 and above.
Below are my tips and guidance for starting a career as an iOS Developer and writing code using the Swift programming language.
Step 1: Learn the Swift programming language. Don't build apps, but write code writing and constructing systems. This way, you will become more knowledgable about the language than most of your competition. This will help a lot when you are in the interview and give you something to say, "I have studied the language more than focussing on building UI... Do you already have a UI for your system? You probably do if you have a live app on the AppStore".
Learn the Swift programming language by downloading Xcode, the software used to build Swift apps for Apple devices.
Visit the official Swift.org website and read the documentation on the language.
There are 28 language features outlined and discussed in official documentation that originated from Apples book on Swift. Official language documentation.
Ask for help and enrol in an online short course online bootcamp for a week spent understanding the beginning of the language as well as how you might even approach learning it; Where is the starting point and what do all the terms mean? 3DaysOfSwift.com offer a 3-day online bootcamp to provide 24 hours of online instruction from an experienced developer to guide you in a pair programming style through the main features of the language and also the IDE that is used to write the syntax, Xcode.
Download Xcode.
Take some Apple tutorials to understand what an app is and how Swift and SwiftUI are used together to build an app.
100 days of SwiftUI has received some glowing reviews in the tech industry and recieves hundreds of thousands of unique site visits each and every month. Click here to visit 100 Days of SwiftUI.
Read the original Apple Book entitled The Swift Programming Language.
Step 2: Apply for jobs in the tech industry as an iOS Developer at a Graduate (as in University Graduate i.e. young and keen to learn) or Junior level. Apply for Junior iOS Developer roles at either a start up or a corporate job. The smaller company will give you more knowledge and experience than the other and the corporate role will provide more money faster. Either way, you can learn what to build when you are given a chance and start your first job role. But before you can do that you will always in all scenarios have to know Swift and how to combine the words (the syntax) together and forging instructions for a computer to process.
It is highly likely that each job role will already have an app on the AppStore and therefore the need for you to already know UI and the SwiftUI framework is low. However, in all scenarios you must already know the Swift language and how to use it to write code and structure it to create new features and edit existing ones. It is my strong recommendation that your priority remain devoted to the construction of a system written in Swift that can have a UI plugged into it at a later date. This will teach division of code, the importance of having great architecture and prevent distractions that can be later better understood.
Once we understand one concept we simply move onto the next. Then the next. And so on. Don't get distracted half-learning UI and getting confused between the system and the UI (User Interface).
Don't delay your entry onto the mobile developer market. Apply for Junior iOS Developers roles with the understanding that you have spent more time learning the language than wasting time studying the UI as well at the same time. You understand that the majority of your time will be spent editing existing code and that the UI is probably already created and live on the AppStore. This will be a good answer to use in an interview.
Step 3: Learn SwiftUI.
Now that you have a solid understanding of systems and the importance of separating the core system and the UI that will plug itself into it like a layer sat on top of a running and working system. Now that you have gained this understanding, you can move onto learning about the app as a whole and the visual representation side of coding; This means learning SwiftUI and you should probably start a side project to create a whole app and submit it to the AppStore.
Start a side project to create a whole app and submit it to the AppStore.
Learn from Apples Developer portal.
Learn from Apples Developer online SwiftUI tutorials.
Take 100 Days of SwiftUI online course by the HackingWithSwift.com website created by Paul Hudson, a well-known figure and influencer in the Swift and iOS world.
Step 4: Move jobs to a different company. Ask for $10,000 more. When you get the job focus on learning more and gaining more experience. Find as many great points as you can about how great you are and maintain your online CV (and paper one too). After 2 years quit this job and move onto the next role. Ask for $10,000 more. Repeat.
Next Steps: Click here and enrol to start lesson 1 of the 3 day online course. The first 3 lessons are free of charge.
Not built with A.I. A human with decades of experience wrote this article. It's designed to help you and provide some real-life guidance to start a career in the tech industry with some solid success, lots of growth and being great at what you do.
How to Enrol
Click here to sign up and enrol.
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3 Days Of Swift Bootcamp
Learn Swift by enrolling in our 3-day online bootcamp. We have 3 days of instructional videos pair programming with our experienced instructor and Senior iOS Developer who guides you to write code for each main language feature of Swift.
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A Career in Swift
Also, as an additional bit of help 3DaysOfSwift has outlined a few career tips that might help as you start your journey as an iOS Developer applying for jobs writing software for Apple devices.
Tips 💡
Below we have included a few career tips to help get you started as a Junior iOS Developer working in the tech industry.
Focus on learning the Swift language itself. Most team members start their learning journey by studying Xcode and building apps. It's a lot of information and plenty to get confused about. Most of your colleagues will have many gaps in knowledge that affect their every-day anxiety with completing tasks and having it reviewed by others. Instead, why not become the one of the reviewers? Our advice is to stand out in the tech industry and if you want to stand out I would suggest becoming very knowledgable about the language itself; Every single developer will be using it and they will all be competing over Architecture and not the best use of language features. Armed with an incredible understanding of the language you will have the confidence in knowing you can maintain any existing product on the market.
Gather "Career Things" like they were collectibles in a game. This easy-to-remember and rather broad term is a great bit of advice. Too many engineers let the months go by without really taking on board many exciting projects or doing anything that wows any one. This is a terrible idea in every way. Stand out. Be the best at something (like understanding the language). When you change positions and apply to a different company you will have an interview and they'll grill you with many questions. The main bits to know are these; Your CV gets you the interview. You display your worth in the interview.
Your CV gets you the interview: Your short 2 page bullet-pointed CV is simply a list of amazing things you did to improve the team, the social element, the code quality, the income, how you increased user retention, how you added a successful feature and improved the app. You must collect career things.
You display worth in the interview: In the interview you want to fill the hour with saying similar phrases non-stop to "I was able to tweak the values and affect the income of the product simply by reducing the friction of the onboarding and providing a more seamless and pleasant user experience for the user. We now have only a 14% drop compared to most companies that have around 30% typically." Notice how you use "we" when referring to your current company in interviews. To simplify the phrase just-used, "I helped my company move forward. I improved the product, which led to an increased user experience and ultimately more profits for the company. I am a team player and I will improve your company at every opportunity possible."
Become confident in Interviews. You are now a talented Swift engineer who understands the Swift language and has a list of successful results you can pull out of the bag and discuss and any interview. You are constantly and infinitely talking about specifics of the Swift language and how cool and useful it is. You are stacking up one example after another of how you affected the results of the team and the company. You are great at telling these stories. The world is your oyster and you can be confident in your abilities as well as your choices in life.
Move company every 2 years. Ask for a £10,000 increase each time. When you become bored at your current job because you "know too much" then start thinking about moving perhaps - it's probably time to upgrade into a different role with a new title and annual salary.
Be driven and be proud that you help keep the world moving by maintaining the digital services we all love and are constantly glued to.
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