Nicholas Sample

Find the fault.
Build what’s next.

I bring a decade of Apple experience to making complex technology reliable, understandable, and useful.

Explore my work Read my résumé
Software quality / Practical AI / Independent creationBased in Los Angeles

The symptom is
only the beginning.

Root cause analysis is about finding the missing information—and making sure what we learn becomes lasting quality practice.

Bring a failure.
Find a direction.

Try my RCA Lab with a non-confidential problem. Explore provisional hypotheses, missing evidence, next tests, and ways to prevent recurrence.

Try the RCA Lab My approach to RCA

What actually failed?

What information is missing?

What would test the explanation?

How do we keep it from returning?

18+engineering teams coordinated through one RCA process.

Built. Tested.
Put into practice.

My work spans the systems behind a release and the experiences people actually use.

Ready for the
real world.

I supported the first-generation Apple Vision Pro launch through platform validation and hardware–software integration testing. My work also includes simulator, SDK, virtualization, and Xcode release testing.

What that involved

I rebuilt OS qualification tests with clearer instructions and expanded application coverage, aligned testing responsibilities across teams, and investigated regressions across application, framework, and operating-system components.

Local power.
Human purpose.Independent exploration / Consumer hardware

AI that fits
everyday life.

I run open-source models on a Mac Mini and build workflows for research, document processing, transcription, and automation. My focus is making local AI approachable on affordable consumer hardware.

How I approach it

I use Codex for independent application development and experiment with guided model setup for nontechnical users, with usefulness and accessibility driving the work.

Room
to grow.Learning Garden / Public release planned

Learning Garden.

An adaptive learning application I designed and built around ability and individual needs, using freely available U.S. and UK educational content.

Behind the project

I expanded the functional app’s design to support people across ages, including older adults. The goal is a free public release that makes learning more accessible.

viruOSity RivalsChroma DyadicYubiviruOSity redux

Four games.
Every moving part.

I designed, developed, tested, and released four original mobile games. I built the gameplay and multitouch controls, created the visuals and original music, and produced the promotional material.

Why it matters to my work

Shipping independently meant owning the whole experience: how it felt, how it performed, and how it reached people. That perspective carries into my quality engineering work.

An engineer.
A builder.
A people person.

Read my résumé

My path into engineering started with helping people use technology, making games, and turning complex information into something clear.

From 2021

Apple · Platform software QA

2016–2021

Apple · Technical & customer experience

2012–2016

Imporium LLC · Lead game designer

2010–2013

U.S. Army · Military intelligence & cartography