simquat

SEEKING WORK | Zürich, Switzerland | Remote

I run a one-man technology studio. I build digital tools with zero frills.

I do both design and engineering. Design is grounded in technology, and technology serves the design. I don't rely on heavy frameworks, endless third-party dependencies, or LLM-generated code. I believe having a landfill of features destroys a product. I want my software lightweight, fast, and built to last.

Recent work:

* Breadboard: A modern HyperCard for the web. While everyone rushes toward LLM app generators, I built a visual canvas where users define behavior using natural language programming cards, exporting to a fully working web app.

* Qualifier: A BIM quality assurance tool. I took a slow, expensive microservices architecture and rebuilt it as a fast, reliable monolithic architecture. I implemented a precise, performant rule-checking engine, and paired it with an intuitive user interface. Users can write tests and view results in real-time, directly on the 3D model.

* AL0: A minimalist smartphone environment for Android. I removed all digital noise and built a utilitarian, text-first UI to implement only the essential features of a phone.

I partner with focused entrepreneurs who know exactly what they want to build, with zero frills.

Studio: https://simquat.com/studio

Email: hello [at] simquat [.] com

Not sure what kind of model you're interested in, but you may give Duck.ai[0] a try. It doesn't require any signup and let you use gpt-5.4 nano/mini, Haiku 4.5, Mistral Small 4 and Gemma 4 31B.

[0] https://duck.ai/

Desktop app bundled with an ai model and a local-first agent so nothing leaves your machine.

Last week I interviewed non-technical people about their experience with AI agents. Many couldn't even use them at all. Either they didn't want to share private data with ChatGPT or company policy prohibited it.

For those of you working with sensitive files – contracts, client records, financials, HR docs – I'd love to hear how you handle this today: simone [at] breadboards.io

Not right now but I'm actually exploring this idea space — doing user research —. I would be happy to chat with you – or whoever happens to read this and is into this topic – about that. simone [at] breadboards.io

Hey! I'm Simone, a computer programmer from Italy living in Zürich.

I have 12+ years of experience as a full stack developer building web and mobile applications across Europe. I have an extensive startup and agency background, which taught me how to integrate effectively with diverse teams and adapt to fast-moving environments.

I value software architecture design. I have deep expertise in the JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystems and I often explore other languages and environments out of curiosity or when a project needs it. I'm also actively exploring applied AI, from building with LLM agents to tinkering with local models – particularly the smaller ones –. I like to bring a strong eye for clean, minimalist UI design to the products I work on.

  Location: Zürich, Switzerland
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, nginx, macOS, Alpine Linux, Node, Java, Swift, SQL and a quick learner
  Résumé/CV: https://simquat.com
  Email: mail[at]simquat.com

In Calabria — the very south of Italy — there this[0] 1000-years-old plane tree.

[0]https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platano_di_Vrisi

I don't see low-code and LLMs really competing with each other. It may be true for quick throwaway projects, but they solve different problems and can potentially be used together.

With low-code, users operate at a high abstraction level and get a deterministic output. You're fully in control of what the result will be. With LLMs you operate at an even higher abstraction level – just a prompt in plain English – but the output is non-deterministic.

So if you want fine control, you need to check line by line what it produced. I think it gets interesting if LLMs generate low-code instead of code. Users get the speed advantage of AI generation, but they can still understand and control what the software is doing.

What is your low-code service?

/!\ Disclaimer, I'm building in this space[0].

[0] https://breadboards.io

Use TextMate[0] as my daily driver.

[0] https://macromates.com/

I would recommend Scratch, the blocks prevent syntax errors, plus there's a simple editor for drawing sprites and backgrounds — my niece used to play with it paired with the book "Scratch programming playground" if I recall correct —.

I'm working on a visual app builder, Breadboard[0], we're not targeting education neither games, but here an example of a tic tac toe game made with it.

Workspace: https://app.breadboards.io/shared/c3c4dc7b-78f7-4e0f-b89f-cc...

Exported app: https://black-creek-7582.breadboards.app/home

[0] https://breadboards.io

Thanks for sharing. By the editor being bare bones do you mean some missing feature might change your mind about using it, or do you find the text-based editor much more comfortable?

Looks quite cool and I'd like to give a try. What is the main use case for compiling code to shortcuts? I ask because I'm working on a tool[0] that in a way does the opposite.

[0] https://breadboards.io

I'm working on Breadboard[0], a modern HyperCard for web apps.

We recently added an AI integration, starting with a UI agent. We're experimenting with a BYOK approach so anyone can try the assistant in the playground[1] without signing in while keeping it sustainable for us. Currently the AI integration connect to Gemini.

A logic agent is in progress, it's a bit trickier because it needs to work with Breadboard's visual-stacked-instructions language based on Hyperscript.

We're also releasing documentation.

[0] https://breadboards.io

[1] https://app.breadboards.io/playgrounds/hello – to access the AI assistant click on the Duck on the dock, you can try with a free api key from Google AI Studio[2] –

[2] https://aistudio.google.com/api-keys

I'm working on it, Breadboard[0] is a visual app builder that mixes Figma-style UI design with Shortcuts-style logic.

[0] https://breadboards.io/

Thanks for digging into the network requests :) That's a valid point, we can bundle or serve this dependency – hyperscript – from the domain where the app lives. The same goes for fonts, at the moment we're using Google Fonts for convenience, but they can easily be served on the same domain as the app.

Thanks, I completely agree with what you say.

That is actually how the "playgrounds"[0][1] I shared work under the hood. In the playground, the preview isn't a simulation, it is the exported app –plus a shim for handling screen routing–.

A user can alter the style, create new components, or tweak the logic to better fit their needs. For example, in the Swiss Public Transit playground[1], you can edit the fetch instructions to access transport data from a different place –of course it would need some tweaks to suit the structure coming from the different API–, then the project can be forked to be independently used live in the Breadboard environment or published.

At the moment, the functionality to make a user project openly shareable as a playground is not available yet, but I think this effectively blur the line between the user and the developer.

[0] https://app.breadboards.io/playgrounds/weather

[1] https://app.breadboards.io/playgrounds/public_transit

Thanks, really appreciate the feedback!

In the playground the apps can only be previewed in the canvas. Exported/live apps are available here:

Weather App: https://late-cat-2043.breadboards.app

Swiss Public Transit: https://long-wind-1522.breadboards.app

Live apps are hosted on Cloudflare, when an app is published it’s stored and served from R2. Exports are not yet downloadable, but we’ll add downloadable exports soon.

I’m working on an app builder that combines a Figma-like canvas for design with Apple Shortcuts-style logic for functionality. Instead of writing code or connecting node graphs, you define behavior by stacking instructions using a syntax based on Hyperscript.

You can try the editor here (no signup required): https://app.breadboards.io/playgrounds/weather

And here is a live app exported from it: https://late-cat-2043.breadboards.app

I'm adding a Shortcuts‑like UI with Hyperscript syntax for defining logic to the app builder I'm building.

A few years ago I rebuilt a 3D model checker for the building industry and intentionally avoided a full frontend framework to keep the UI performant.

I wrote a small internal mini-framework to follow the MVC pattern and Web Components for reusable elements. I also used external libraries: three.js for 3D rendering, sql.js for handling the 3d's models meta-data in a performant way, and @tanstack/virtual for virtualizing large lists and tables.

The biggest benefit was finer control over performance. The main downside was a less comfortable developer experience — it’s harder to find polished, ready-made vanilla-JavaScript components, so you implement more yourself.

here's a quick demo video showing this in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg_W86tk_EM

That's cool! This resonates a lot with what I'm up to. I'm using SVGs as UI pieces and wiring them to composable logic blocks so to make things interactive without having to write code.

/!\ Self-promo I'm working on Breadboard[0]. Here an interactive demo[1] – no signup required –.

[0] https://breadboards.io/ [1] https://app.breadboards.io/demo

I'm working on a tool[0] to address how hard it is for non-technical people to understand the text-based code from vibe coding tools.

Our approach is to make the complexity more readable by using three simple block types to represent logic, data, and UI, which are connected by cables – a bit like wiring up components on an electronics breadboard –.

Instead of spitting out a wall of code, the AI generates these visual blocks and makes the right connections between them. The ultimate goal is to make the output from LLM more accessible and actionable for everyone, not just developers.

[0] https://breadboards.io/

I'm working on https://blueprintapp.design an app to simplify the creation of user flows.