Software engineering, DevOps, and lessons from an unconventional path into tech.https://raulcpena.com/en-ushttps://raulcpena.com/blog/i-wrote-the-lesson-down-on-day-one/https://raulcpena.com/blog/i-wrote-the-lesson-down-on-day-one/Apple pulled Feastmark from review on August 2nd. Twenty-six days and fourteen builds later I resubmitted it, and the bug that ate the most of that time was one I had already diagnosed, written up, and declared fixed — twice.Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTiosswiftapp-storeshare-extensiondebuggingtestingfeastmarkhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/apples-uploader-wanted-an-icon-size-that-doesnt-exist/https://raulcpena.com/blog/apples-uploader-wanted-an-icon-size-that-doesnt-exist/"Missing app icon. iMessage-only apps must include an asset catalog with a large app icon" — eight uploads rejected with a 409 for a 1024x1024 the .stickersiconset schema has no slot for and actool refuses to emit. What the check actually reads, and the workaround that got the build through.Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTiosxcodeapp-store-connectimessagedebuggingreeltalkhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/nine-months-of-nights-and-weekends-ends-with-an-app-store-link/https://raulcpena.com/blog/nine-months-of-nights-and-weekends-ends-with-an-app-store-link/PayoffPilot cleared App Review and is live on the App Store — the payoff after nine months of nights and weekends, for an app that, by design, can't tell me if anyone's actually opening it.Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTapp-storeiosbig-beard-appspayoffpilotsolo-devlaunchhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/the-upload-wasnt-slow-it-never-connected/https://raulcpena.com/blog/the-upload-wasnt-slow-it-never-connected/A GitHub Actions deploy to Hostinger died three times in seventeen minutes and I read the log backwards. The two-minute gap I blamed on a slow archive was a TCP handshake failing in silence, and no faster transfer would have fixed it.Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTdevopsci-cdgithub-actionsnetworkingdebugginghostingercloudflarehttps://raulcpena.com/blog/the-model-read-the-wrong-2000-characters/https://raulcpena.com/blog/the-model-read-the-wrong-2000-characters/A recipe import came back with one ingredient and no oven temperature. The obvious diagnosis was a hallucinating LLM. The actual bug was two lines of scraper written years before the model ever saw the page.Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTaillmweb-scrapingdebuggingiosfeastmarkhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/what-shipping-with-no-analytics-actually-costs/https://raulcpena.com/blog/what-shipping-with-no-analytics-actually-costs/Four iOS apps, zero analytics SDKs, and no idea what anyone does inside them. Why working alone is what makes that refusal possible — and the specific things it takes away.Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTprivacyiosanalyticsbig-beard-appssolo-devhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/learning-to-code-at-40-what-no-bootcamp-tells-you/https://raulcpena.com/blog/learning-to-code-at-40-what-no-bootcamp-tells-you/I started at 40, with a full-time job and two kids. Ten years later, the thing I'd tell someone starting now isn't about aptitude — it's about what the tutorials quietly leave out.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTcareer-changeself-taughtlearningsoftware-engineeringhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/what-real-estate-taught-me-about-debugging-production-issues/https://raulcpena.com/blog/what-real-estate-taught-me-about-debugging-production-issues/The transferable skill from brokering real estate isn't staying calm under pressure. It's holding someone's confidence while you're blocked on a queue you don't control.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTcareer-changeincident-responsereal-estatedevopshttps://raulcpena.com/blog/four-apps-at-apple-at-once/https://raulcpena.com/blog/four-apps-at-apple-at-once/Three apps in App Store review, one in TestFlight, one solo developer with a day job and two kids. What actually broke was not the code. It was the marketing site, and the one bug that no automated check could see.Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTapp-storeiosbig-beard-appssolo-devautomationhttps://raulcpena.com/blog/building-payoffpilot-ios-app/https://raulcpena.com/blog/building-payoffpilot-ios-app/The real story behind my privacy-first iOS debt payoff app: an idea in January 2024, a first commit in October 2025, and what it actually takes to finish a side project while learning a new job.Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTios-developmentswiftuiswiftdataprivacybig-beard-appsside-projecthttps://raulcpena.com/blog/ci-cd-best-practices-for-enterprise-teams/https://raulcpena.com/blog/ci-cd-best-practices-for-enterprise-teams/Lessons from building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines at Dell Technologies — what works, what doesn't, and the mistakes that taught me the most.Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTci-cddevopsjenkinskubernetesenterprisehttps://raulcpena.com/blog/getting-started-with-hashicorp-vault/https://raulcpena.com/blog/getting-started-with-hashicorp-vault/Learn the fundamentals of HashiCorp Vault for secrets management, from basic concepts to your first working implementation.Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMThashicorp-vaultdevopssecuritysecrets-managementinfrastructurehttps://raulcpena.com/blog/from-real-estate-to-software-engineering/https://raulcpena.com/blog/from-real-estate-to-software-engineering/How I went from a 15-year real estate career to software engineering at Dell Technologies — starting over at 40.Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTcareer-changeself-taughtsoftware-engineeringpersonal-growthdell-technologies