In this episode of Request // Response, I sit down with Charlie Cheever, CEO of Expo and co-founder of Quora, to unpack the evolution of mobile app development and how developer experience is adapting in an AI-assisted world. 

Charlie shares stories from scaling Quora's mobile presence, his frustrations with App Store complexity, and how Expo is aiming to make app development as smooth as deploying a website.

From React Native to GraphQL to vibe coding, Charlie breaks down the current gaps in frontend-backend integration and offers a wishlist for what a truly great developer experience could look like—particularly in a world where more non-developers are writing production code.

Whether you're building mobile apps, exploring streaming APIs, or thinking deeply about DX tooling, this is a must-listen.

Show Notes

[00:00:00] Introduction

• Mobile app development, developer experience, Quora, and Expo.

[00:01:00] The Challenge of Mobile vs. Web Development

• Why mobile app development remains more complex than web.
• Charlie shares the motivation behind starting Expo.

[00:02:00] Quora’s Mobile Journey

• How building native iOS and Android apps took longer than launching the original website.
• Technical and organizational challenges of scaling mobile.

[00:03:00] Building Expo and React Native’s Rise

• The inspiration behind Expo: make native development as simple as the web.
• React Native’s explosive popularity and Expo’s role in democratizing it.
• Helping teams without Meta-scale infrastructure.

[00:04:00] Making React Native Work for Everyone

• How Expo bridges gaps in native app development.
• The importance of tools like Expo and Vercel in modern developer workflows.

[00:05:00] Is GraphQL Still the Right Abstraction?

• Charlie reflects on GraphQL’s evolution and current limitations.
• Comparing it to frontend framework history (Rails → React).
• The need for more end-to-end client/server coherence.

[00:06:00] Balancing State, Performance, and Cost

• Complexity in backend design due to varied use cases.
• The challenge of making highly reactive systems affordable and performant.

[00:07:00] Streaming APIs, SSE, and DX Gaps

• How the rise of real-time UX (e.g., chat apps) is stressing API design.
• No streaming standard in OpenAPI/GraphQL specs yet.
• The tooling gap for reactive and streaming data patterns.

[00:08:00] Wishlist for the Future of API Dev

• Charlie’s top priority: cost-efficiency in scalable systems.
• The hidden costs of AI-generated or streaming-heavy applications.
• The importance of default patterns that are economical by design.

[00:09:00] AI, Prompt-to-App, and Developer Onboarding

• The influx of non-developers using Expo via AI-powered tools.
• Reworking product terminology and UX for AI-native builders.
• The shift from code complexity to deployment complexity.

[00:10:00] Vibe Coding and System Architecture Risks

• The risk of vibe coding critical backend interactions.
• Why grounding AI-generated work in opinionated, proven patterns matters.

[00:11:00] Scaffolding and Guardrails for AI-Driven Dev

• The role of SSA-style rules and architectural constraints.
• Importance of enforcing standards even in semi-AI-written codebases.

[00:12:00] A Hybrid Dev World

• Current state: most repos are still human-written with AI augmentation.
• The mismatch when AI-generated code doesn’t follow team conventions.

[00:13:00] Expo’s Strategy for the AI Era

• Adapting Expo for AI-assisted builders.
• Making deploy tooling more accessible as code creation gets easier.
• Value shift from writing code to shipping product.

[00:14:00] The Magic of Going Live

• How products like Vercel V0 and Expo reduce the friction of launch.
• Sharing live URLs as the new MVP moment.

[00:15:00] Great Developer Experiences: Inspirations

• Charlie’s favorite DX examples: PHP, early Rails, undo features.
• Simplicity, feedback loops, and emotional empowerment as DX pillars.

[00:16:00] Undo and Developer Safety

• Git, Neon, and the psychological benefit of reversible workflows.
• Why safety enables faster and more creative software building.

Additional Quotes from the Podcast

How AI is Changing the Way Users Build Apps

"A huge number of the people sort of signing up for Expo accounts and stuff now are using AI sort of prompt to app tools. So we're having to build a whole new set of products or at least change some of our products 'cause some of the terminology that we use is, you know, tailored to developers and like developers know what this means or that means. And a lot of times these people are like, "I am using Expo because I saw the name come up a bunch of times as I was, you know, prompting. But I don't really know what it is and I don't know why I'm here. And what are you gonna help me do and why do I need to?"

It was always like, "Hey, like there's always people who just have ideas. How do we make those come to life as quickly as possible?" And so like for a long time it just sort of felt like, well there's this whole hairy problem of doing the writing, the code of software development, you know, writing React code, writing backend code or whatever.

And like all of a sudden that's getting way, way easier and going way, way faster."

The Magic Moment That Defines Great DX

"I think that the biggest thing that like you can give in sort of a Dev X experience is if you take somebody who like thinks they can't quite do something and that's got, something's gonna be hard, and then all of a sudden it just ends up easier than they thought. And they're just sort of on a smooth path to something happening.

I remember watching videos of people competing like in the sort of mid-2000s where, and I never even used Rails, but I just saw these where it's "make a blog in 12 minutes with Ruby on Rails." And then somebody else had put out a video that was like, make a blog in, you know, eight minutes and then seven minutes and then six minutes and just sort of like competing to get that as smooth and streamlined as easy as possible was I think pretty amazing."