Gijón, Asturias
I was born in Madrid in 1988 and moved to Amsterdam at 24 to make mobile apps. Six and a half years later I quit to go travelling, and the camera came along. These days I live in Asturias, work at Polarsteps, and spend my free time in the mountains.
I’ve been making iPhone apps since around 2010, starting with ad SDKs at a small company in Madrid. At 24 I moved to Amsterdam and worked on apps for Dutch brands, a framework for Disney’s international apps, and Suitsupply’s iOS and tvOS apps, where I also ran the mobile chapter.
In January 2021 I joined Polarsteps as its first iOS engineer. I built the team up to fourteen and split the app into more than forty Swift packages. Today I’m a Staff Engineer there and lead the Plan pillar.
In 2017 I quit my job and went travelling for eight months: Nepal, Jordan, Chile, India, Australia, New Zealand and a few more. I came back with a camera habit and thousands of photos.
It turned into a small business. Media kits for tourism brands, stories for Exposure, a couple of years as a Lonely Planet Pathfinder, two exhibitions in Madrid and a print shop that still sells prints. It also taught me things code doesn’t, like pricing my own work.
Most of what I know I learned by doing it: photography, timelapses, and Git, which I ended up teaching to whole teams. I’ve given talks, run a mobile chapter and published a few open-source iOS libraries.
Any time of the year you’ll probably find me outside: ski touring in the Cantabrian mountains, climbing, snowboarding, or sleeping in a tent to catch a sunrise.
Every one logged in Flighty. Home used to be Amsterdam and Madrid; now it’s Asturias. Some of the dots have a photo story behind them.
Flight log
Pasaporte · Passport · Paspoort
Each photo is a story from that trip. Tap one to open it; pinch, double-tap or use + and − to zoom in.
“Javi is a wizard when it comes to landscape photography.”
Jack Palfrey, Lonely Planet
“Every step in the collaboration exceeded our expectations, from the communication to the prompt delivery of content.”
Travellers Autobarn
“The stories from Javi Lorbada aren’t just photos from another trip, it’s a deep dive into a whole new world.”
Luke Beard, Exposure
iOS work, consulting, leading a team, or helping one grow.