Scaling iOS at Bumble (Part 3)

Bumble's iOS team hit a wall: dozens of engineers, hundreds of modules, and Xcode was buckling under the pressure. Sound familiar?

Bumble Inc.'s iOS Core Team shares how they tackled the classic 'medium-scale' problem: too big for Apple's out-of-the-box tools, too small to justify building everything in-house. This is Part 1 of their journey evaluating Swift Package Manager, Tuist, and Bazel.

Key Takeaways

• Managing hundreds of modules with custom tooling became unsustainable
• Xcode project files caused constant merge conflicts across growing teams
• Three solutions evaluated: SPM, Tuist, and Bazel for different reasons
• Goal: eliminate custom tooling while improving build speeds and modularity
• Medium-scale teams face unique challenges neither startups nor tech giants experience

Parts 2 and 3 reveal which tool they chose and whether it actually delivered on the promise of faster builds and happier developers.