Zola App

Overview

Zola App is a next-generation social discovery platform designed to facilitate deeper, personality-based connections. By combining rich real-time communication tools with dynamic matching algorithms, Zola goes beyond the simple "swipe right" mechanics to offer high-fidelity interaction.

The Challenge

Building cross-platform real-time communications inside a React Native sandbox presents significant challenges:

1. Low-Latency Signaling: Maintaining instant chat status sync across unstable mobile connections.
2. Background VoIP Calling: Handling inbound VoIP alerts when the device is locked or the app is killed.
3. Audio-Video Streams: Syncing Agora RTC connections dynamically across both iOS and Android native containers.

My Role & Contributions

As the Lead Mobile Architect, I engineered the application core from scratch, establishing a clean MVVM architecture structure.

• VoIP Architecture: Engineered native integration hooks utilizing react-native-callkeep and Apple Push Notification service (APNs) / Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) to trigger background call screens.
• Agora RTC Stream Integration: Wrapped Agora's native C++ rendering context into reusable React components, managing viewport rendering layouts dynamically.
• WebSocket client: Implemented a custom WebSocket reconnect manager handling backoff, heartbeat intervals, and offline cache storage.

Key Features

• Real-time Match Routing: Staggered personality surveys feed an API which generates dynamic user discovery grids.
• VoIP Call Notification Manager: Receives silent pushes to wake up the system background, showing full call layout screens.
• Secure Direct Chat: Encrypted room sockets with instant status signals (typing indicators, read receipts).