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Press and speaking
On Stage and In Print
Upcoming talks, published articles, and the decade of work that led here
Abbey Jackson, founder of Up Coast Digital Products, Inc., is speaking at ProductCamp Vancouver on May 9 and running a workshop and two talks at Swift Rockies in Calgary, AB this July.
She has been giving talks in the iOS and developer community since 2019 and has appeared on developer podcasts as both a guest and a host.
Before that she spent more than a decade in the tech industry, working her way to Staff Engineer and then Head of Product, with credits at Intel, Mastercard, and Rivian, where she holds a patent for the architecture behind the Rivian app's vehicle communication system.
She now runs Up Coast Leaders, where she teaches app strategy and product leadership to new and aspiring founders.
"Abbey is smart, resilient, hardworking, passionate about the quality of her product, has high user empathy, is kind towards colleagues and fun to be around. Anyone would be lucky to have Abbey as an engineer or as a PM."
- Alex Wilton
Sr. Product Leader, Rivian
"You need to talk to Abbey. She was part of my software team at Intel Vaunt. Definitely on my 'hire again' list."
- Brian Hernacki
VP Software Engineering, Intel
"There are people that cross your path in life that leave a positive indelible mark, Abbey is one of those people. Her personal energy and work ethic are exhilarating. Abbey works not only to drive the project forward but works to bring the rest of the team up with her."
- Christopher (C3) Croteau
GM/VP Engineering, Intel
"Abbey cemented herself as one of the top iOS knowledge experts on the team. She played a critical role in the development of the iOS code base by advocating for coding standards practices and mentoring junior developers."
- Raymond Chen
Software Engineering Manager, Mastercard
"Abbey worked hard to meet, and in many cases exceed, project milestones while still upholding code quality with a nearly 90% unit test coverage that we still maintain today."
- Peter Peltier
VP of Technology, Takl
"She improved my skills as a developer by constantly questioning my comments and remarks in code reviews... I believe this demonstrates a leadership quality in Abbey that is not something that can necessarily be taught."
- Logan Gauthier
Sr. iOS Lead, Metova
On stage
2026 Speaking and Conferences
Product discovery, app strategy, and getting into tech.
ProductCamp Vancouver - May 9, 2026
Product Discovery Doesn't Just Work on Software
At ProductCamp 2024, Abbey announced her new product services business, Up Coast, and spent the day in 1-on-1 shopping her idea around to the product managers in attendance. The enthusiasm was overwhelming. But product managers weren't her target audience and eighteen months later she'd completely changed what she was building because she actually did the research. This talk is that case study: what she tested, what failed, what surprised her, and how the business she launched looks nothing like the one she was pitching in those hallway conversations two years ago.
The MixTapes Summit - May 19-29 2026
Talk to be announced
TBD
Swift Rockies - July 21, 22, 23, 2026
Abbey has three engagements at Swift Rockies 2026:
Workshop: From Passion to Product: The App Strategy Workshop for Indie Devs
You have the passion and the coding skills. This workshop is about learning how to turn ideas into products people actually want. Abbey covers the frameworks: identifying your ideal user, competitive analysis, customer interviews, and solution design. The goal is replacing guessing with a process you can repeat.
Talk: How I Bought My Way Into Tech: Rethinking Who Gets In
Abbey took on a high-interest loan for a coding bootcamp while living on disability. A risk most people in her position would never be offered. Within five years she was a staff engineer at Rivian, with a resume that included Mastercard, and Intel. This talk is that story, and what it reveals about who tech lets in and who it quietly keeps out, especially now that remote work is reshaping small communities where many capable people already live.
Live Podcast: "Launched" by Revenue Cat with Charlie Chapman (Panel Taping)
A live taping of Charlie Chapman's Launched podcast, with guests Nick Wilkinson, Robleh Jama, and Krish Satya.
In the media
Press Coverage
Tech and business publications
Techcouver - March 10, 2026
"A Vancouver Island tech veteran is opening the doors to an aspect of app building most founders are never taught."
In print
Published Writing
Product discovery, app strategy, and getting into tech.
April 29, 2026
Abbey built her business around her health not because it was an inspiring choice but because it was the only viable one. On doing the same unglamorous thing over and over on the days when everything in you wants to stop.
Upcoming...
Launch-in-a-Week Hype Culture is Killing Discipline
Why skipping the research phase doesn't actually save time. It just moves the cost somewhere else. And why handing that research off to AI at the exact moment your judgment matters most is the most expensive shortcut you can take.
Self Disciplined is a publication about what discipline actually looks like in everyday life: essays, reflections, and candid writing on the habits and choices that make consistency possible.
The technical side
The Engineering Years
Agencies, a SaaS startup, Intel, Mastercard, and Rivian
Abbey started as a junior iOS developer at an agency. She built her engineering skills at Intel and Mastercard before joining Rivian, where she made Staff Engineer before transitioning into product management.
At Rivian, she acted as system architect for the iOS and Android mobile apps, led the initial product work including competitive and user research, and then took on release engineering and release management, before leaving engineering for product. After Rivian she worked at a SaaS startup and then returned to agency work.
She's held both engineering and product roles across consumer apps, hardware control apps, internal tooling, release engineering, and full stack development.
The Patent: US12115931B2
Rivian Automotive App-to-Vehicle Communication Architecture
At Rivian, Abbey designed the system-level architecture for how the Rivian mobile app communicates with the vehicle. It spans Bluetooth Low Energy for local commands and cloud-based connections for remote access.
The patent documents that architecture: the mobile app module structure, and the communication sequences for both the local unlock flow and cloud-based remote commands.
Talks and Presentations
Modularize All The Things!
Video · Slides · Sample Code
A practical session on breaking a monolithic iOS app into modules using private frameworks. Covers the key decision points: static vs dynamic libraries, multiple projects vs multiple targets. Walks through how to structure data passing between modules using protocols, delegates, and reactive programming. Includes a live demo of a working modular project.
Anatomy of a Testable Class
What separates code that's easy to maintain from code that quietly poisons a codebase. The talk covers the anatomy of an untestable class: non-determinism, hidden side effects, hidden dependencies, uncontrolled mutability. Then walks through the concrete changes that make a class testable: clear APIs, honest dependencies, loose coupling, and single responsibility.
iOS Framework Internals: Getting to the Guts of It All
A low-level look at how iOS frameworks actually work: static vs dynamic libraries, how the dynamic linker resolves symbols, what exported symbols files do and why they matter, and how to inspect a framework. Includes a real production example: a naming collision between two OpenSSL static libraries embedded in separate dynamic frameworks, and how controlling symbol exports resolved it.
Distributing Private Binary Frameworks with Cocoapods
Cocoapods is usually discussed in the context of open source. This talk covers the less-documented side: how to use the Cocoapods system to distribute private, unlisted, closed-source binary frameworks inside a team or organisation. Covers the full pod retrieval flow, how to write a closed-source podspec, setting up a private podspec repository, and managing releases.
Podcasts
Published Writing
A practical walkthrough of UITest for iOS developers. One of the most-referenced articles from Abbey's engineering years.
Portfolio
Engineering blog, project case studies, and additional career details at abbeyjackson.ca
"Every part of our product that Abbey touched got better. She took a disciplined approach to incremental improvements that made the lives of her team easier and improved the quality of the code overall. I would hire Abbey in a heartbeat for any iOS projects."
- Jeremy Bennet
Chief Architect, New Devices Group, Intel
"Abbey's versatility and leadership have been invaluable on every project we've worked on together. I have great respect for her work and am excited to see her continued contributions to the community and her lasting impact on businesses."
- Leonid Kokhnovych
Sr. iOS Engineer, Intel
"Whether it was creating pipelines to facilitate testing and development, or bridging the gap between engineering and executive leadership, Abbey created impact that is still seen to this day, and visible to anyone who has worked with her."
- Thomas Dwyer
Sr. Staff Systems Integration Engineer, Rivian
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