Management of Native Code and React Native at Shopify

Shopify went all-in on React Native, but quickly learned that sometimes you need to break the rules. Here's when they write native code anyway.

A year after betting on React Native, Shopify's mobile team shares hard-won lessons about when JavaScript isn't enough. They tackled complex UI performance and background job issues in their Point of Sale app.

Key Takeaways

• Complex drag-and-drop grid UI stayed in React Native using Reanimated 2
• Background sync rewritten in Kotlin Multiplatform: 95% code sharing across platforms
• Native sync reduced initial sync time from 30+ seconds to 2-3 seconds
• Only 348 lines of platform-specific code versus 3,447 lines of shared code

The article includes detailed setup instructions for adding Kotlin Multiplatform to your React Native project without starting from scratch.