About
I'm Javier Cicchelli. Twenty-six years in software, seventeen of them on mobile — and I still write the code I'm accountable for. Röck+Cöde is the name I work under.
I started working professionally in 2000, while still doing my software engineering degree, and moved to mobile the moment the iPhone opened up. Since then I've built for every Apple platform, Android, the web and the services behind them — often with Bluetooth, NFC or embedded hardware in the loop.
Leading has taken as many of those years: as tech lead and interim head of mobile, owning roadmaps, running delivery, mentoring engineers and hiring the next ones. Most companies hire the strategist, the lead and the engineer as three people. You get them in one — so the roadmap, the architecture and the pull request are made by someone accountable for all three.
How I work
01
Boring, proven solutions over clever ones. Every layer has to earn its place by making the next change cheaper — if it doesn't, it goes.
02
Every technical choice is weighed against the team you have, the market you're in and, at least, the next twelve months — then written down, with the trade-offs, so nobody has to guess later.
03
Leading doesn't mean leaving the editor. I review, I pair, I take the hard ticket myself — and I ship alongside the team every week, so my estimates come from the codebase, not from a slide.
04
I work inside your rituals and tools rather than importing mine, and I plan my own exit from day one: when I leave, the people, the docs and the pipeline can carry it without me.
Products I own
The products I run under Röck+Cöde, where I'm the engineer, the product owner and the business: I find the gap, decide what to build and what to leave out, ship it and make it pay. No client, no brief — the clearest view of how I weigh product and business against code when every call is mine.
Amsterdam's guide to the loud half of town — rock, metal, punk, hardcore, goth and industrial. Every gig, club night, venue, record shop and screening pulled into one place instead of ten; curated by people who were in the room, no algorithm and no ads. The same crew books and hosts its own nights.
Concept · Design · Engineering · Promotion
Open source I maintain
The open-source Swift libraries, templates and API clients I publish and maintain under Röck+Cöde — from hardware bindings in Embedded Swift to cross-platform native clients — are written the way I write client code, so you can read it before you hire the engineer.
Sample apps I wrote
Complete, documented apps written to a brief in a few days — the same ground-up decisions I'd make on your project, at a size you can read in an afternoon. Every choice is explained in the README; they aren't maintained, and don't need to be.
What clients say
“Such a hardworking developer, with an approachable and highly helpful attitude for every type of question. His leadership skills and his knowledge are unmatched.”
Rock & Roll
Tell me what you're building, where it's stuck, and when you need it.
Available March 2027 · Amsterdam, hybrid or remote
