Developers on Stellar: Christian Rogobete, Soneso

Welcome to the second edition of the Developers on Stellar series! Our Stellar devs are critical to Stellar’s growth and success — they find bugs, provide feedback, build tools, establish businesses, and more! And we want to shine a light on some of these inspiring individuals to show how much we appreciate them. Read on to learn about one of our key Stellar SDK contributors!

Christian Rogobete is something of a Stellar SDK wizard. In April 2018, his Stellar iOS SDK won first place in the Stellar Build Challenge (the predecessor program to our current Stellar Community Fund). This sixth Stellar Build Challenge had an unprecedented amount of entries compared to past rounds, making the win all the more impressive. Today, not only does Christian still maintain his iOS SDK, but he has also developed and continues to maintain Stellar’s Flutter and PHP SDKs and is working on an AssemblyScript Soroban SDK. See what I mean by SDK wizard?

Before becoming a valuable Stellar contributor, Christian (who you may know as Soneso) studied computer science in school. He initially planned to follow in his parents’ footsteps to study mathematics, but they encouraged him to pursue technology instead. They had watched Christian’s interest in “computer stuff” develop as he grew older, which all began, as it often does, with gaming. Christian’s good friend had received a computer as a gift, and while they enjoyed playing computer games, Christian’s curiosity went deeper. He wanted to know how the game actually worked. Hence his enthusiasm for technology.

During his time at university, Christian also interned at a large internet provider in Munich, Germany. This internship turned into a job where Christian truly started to learn about programming. Following this experience, Christian found a home in freelance and worked on projects for several large companies, including BMW, Siemens, and various insurance companies and banks. In 2007, Christian started developing iOS applications and games — there weren’t very many out at the time, and he saw great opportunity for growth in the space.

By the time people started talking about blockchain and crypto, Christian was incredibly accomplished in many endeavors, including iOS development. He was intrigued by the possibilities that blockchain offered around decentralized payment systems and financial inclusion.

One day in 2017, Christian’s friend urged him to check out Stellar. Christian was immediately impressed with Stellar’s developer documentation, and he began experimenting with the network by connecting his phone and making transactions via mobile. After spending some time exploring and learning, he decided to share his knowledge with others and started to build the Stellar iOS SDK.

One thing that Christian enjoys most is helping to make programming more accessible to his fellow developers. He contributes much of his education to having access to open-source materials and wants to provide the same for others. He loves maintaining and extending his SDKs and is incredibly excited about the work he’s doing for the AssemblyScript Soroban SDK. He hopes to make it as easy as possible for developers to build smart contracts on Stellar.

When Christian breaks from being an SDK wizard, you can find him adventuring with his two daughters and beloved dog. Christian recently moved from Germany to Spain and is loving the fresh ocean air and access to the mountains. We are grateful for Christian’s contributions to Stellar’s SDK library and look forward to seeing what people do with the AssemblyScript Soroban SDK!

If Christian’s story inspires you to build your own SDK, the Soroban docs can help! And, of course, stay up to date on all things Soroban and interact with other devs in the Stellar Developer Discord.