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12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

phonegap experts 1 - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

PhoneGap (and its open-source core, Apache Cordova) has a vibrant history built by talented contributors.

Here we highlight the most influential PhoneGap developers – spanning open-source core committers, startup founders in cross-platform mobile, prolific bloggers/educators, corporate engineers, and even coding contest winners who left their mark on hybrid app development. These individuals helped shape the PG ecosystem, from creating the framework and plugins to teaching and inspiring the developer community. Below is the list of top PhoneGap experts, followed by brief bios and key links for each:

  1. Brian LeRoux
  2. Jesse MacFadyen
  3. Brock Whitten
  4. Raymond Camden
  5. Lisa Seacat DeLuca
  6. Dave Johnson
  7. Simon MacDonald
  8. Steve Gill
  9. Kerri Shotts
  10. Max Lynch
  11. André Charland
  12. Andrew Grieve

Now, let’s delve deeper into their achievements and contributions:

Brian LeRoux

YouTube Video

Nationality: Canadian

Co-creator of PhoneGap, Brian championed its open-sourcing as Apache Cordova and led the project’s growth at Adobe.

He shaped Cordova’s plugin architecture and tooling, paving the way for hybrid apps on iOS and Android. A frequent conference speaker known for “WTFJS,” Brian later co-founded startups (e.g. Begin) and continues to advocate web and serverless technologies, recently joining Sanity.io in a senior role. His work laid the foundation for today’s cross-platform mobile development.

Jesse MacFadyen

Nationality: Canadian

An early PhoneGap pioneer, Jesse has been contributing since “day 0” of the project. At Nitobi/Adobe he tackled every aspect of Cordova – from implementing support for Windows Phone and BlackBerry to maintaining core plugins and tools.

Known by the handle “purplecabbage,” Jesse also developed Cordova’s plugin management (Plugman) and served as Cordova’s PMC Chair, guiding its direction. He’s a true polyglot coder who could debug Objective-C, Java, and JavaScript alike. After a decade in hybrid apps, Jesse now works on extending Adobe’s cloud platform, carrying forward the extensibility principles he honed with Cordova.

Brock Whitten

Brock Whitten - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

Nationality: Canadian

Brock is best known for co-creating PhoneGap alongside Rob Ellis. A web developer turned mobile pioneer, he helped demonstrate that HTML/JS apps could be packaged as native apps, kicking off the PhoneGap project.

After PhoneGap’s early success, Brock joined cloud platform provider Joyent, where he created its public API and continued pushing developer experience forward. He later co-founded Chloi (makers of Harp, a simplified web publishing platform) and the Surge static web publishing tool, reflecting his passion for empowering developers. Brock’s journey from PhoneGap to other developer tools shows a consistent theme: making complex tech simpler for builders.

Raymond Camden

Cordova gives you access to native functionality using the skills you already have — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. That’s powerful.

Nationality: American

Raymond (“Ray”) Camden is a developer advocate and blogger who became the go-to PhoneGap guru for many developers. Formerly an Adobe evangelist, Ray pivoted from ColdFusion to focus on PhoneGap/Cordova and hybrid mobile tech.

He authored Apache Cordova in Action (Manning, 2015) and numerous tutorials that demystified Cordova APIs, plugins, and troubleshooting. Ray’s personal blog (raymondcamden.com) has a rich archive of Cordova tips, and he co-hosted community Q&A sessions to help developers (often alongside fellow evangelists like Andrew Trice). Now a developer advocate at Adobe (and previously IBM), Ray remains a highly respected voice in web and mobile development.

Lisa Seacat DeLuca

Lisa Seacat DeLuca - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

Nationality: American

Lisa is a distinguished engineer who made her mark bringing Cordova into large-scale enterprise use. At IBM, she led mobile engineering teams and became an Apache Cordova committer, serving as a go-to expert internally for hybrid development.

Lisa contributed to Cordova plugins (e.g. push notifications) and co-authored IBM guides on Cordova enterprise best practices. Notably, she helped build the Cordova-based app for IBM’s Insight conference used by thousands – a high-profile proof of Cordova’s capabilities. Outside Cordova, Lisa is IBM’s most prolific female inventor (700+ patents) and was featured in Forbes “30 Under 30.” Even after moving to roles in IoT and blockchain, she remains a tech role model. In the Cordova story, Lisa proved that hybrid apps can meet rigorous enterprise demands, inspiring more developers (especially women in tech) to embrace mobile app development.

Dave Johnson

Nationality: Canadian

Dave co-founded Nitobi (the company behind PhoneGap) and was its CTO. He helped build the initial PhoneGap prototype at the 2008 iPhoneDevCamp hackathon, proving web apps could tap native features.

Dave’s early vision and code (like the JS-to-native bridge) laid the groundwork for the hybrid app paradigm. He also steered the project through its Adobe acquisition and Apache contribution in 2011. Under Dave’s leadership, PhoneGap won the Web 2.0 Expo 2009 People’s Choice Award and gained enterprise interest. After Adobe, he continued in tech (including a stint at Microsoft). Dave literally “wrote the book” on PhoneGap (early docs and guides) and is a true pioneer of cross-platform mobile apps.

Simon MacDonald

Simon MacDonald - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

Nationality: Canadian

Simon MacDonald is a veteran of the PhoneGap team and a developer advocate who bridged the gap between the core engineering and the community.

At Adobe, he was a senior engineer contributing to Apache Cordova and PhoneGap – Simon developed popular plugins (he authored the PushPlugin for notifications) and wrote countless blog posts addressing common Cordova issues. He also spoke at user groups worldwide (Ottawa, London, etc.) with his trademark humor and clarity. Simon co-organized the Ottawa JavaScript and PhoneGap meetups to help others get started. After Adobe, he joined startup Begin (founded by Brian LeRoux) continuing to work on developer tools. Simon’s approachable style (see his “PhoneGap for Beginners” workshops) made him a beloved mentor in the hybrid app community.

Steve Gill

Nationality: Canadian

Steve has been a stalwart of PhoneGap/Cordova from the beginning. He joined Nitobi in 2009 as an intern and grew with the project, later becoming a lead engineer at Adobe on Cordova.

Steve built the Cordova CLI tool and many related libraries, greatly simplifying the developer workflow. He also coordinated contributions from companies like Google, Microsoft, and IBM as Cordova expanded. After nearly 10 years on Cordova (and helping Adobe open-source other projects), Steve moved to Slack, where he is now Director of Developer Engineering. His decade of hybrid app experience – from coding to community evangelism – made him a linchpin of the Cordova team.

Kerri Shotts

Kerri Shotts - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

Nationality: American

Kerri Shotts is a developer, author, and speaker who dedicated herself to educating others about PhoneGap. She wrote multiple books with Packt Publishing, including PhoneGap 3.x Mobile Application Development Hotshot and Mastering PhoneGap Mobile Development (2015), which guide readers through building sophisticated hybrid apps.

Kerri also explored specialized topics like social media integration in PhoneGap Social App Development. Active in the community, she spoke at PhoneGap Day (2017) on modernizing PhoneGap plugins and often shared quick tips on her blog (covering Cordova’s Content Security Policy, SQLite usage, etc.). Her clear writing and thorough examples have helped many developers climb the PhoneGap learning curve. Kerri’s work proves that with the right guidance, web developers can confidently create secure, data-driven mobile apps for enterprise and beyond.

Max Lynch

Nationality: American

Max Lynch is a startup founder who influenced the PhoneGap ecosystem by creating Ionic – a popular hybrid app framework built on Cordova.

In 2013, Max and his team developed Ionic to provide a front-end SDK on top of Cordova, dramatically improving UI and developer experience for PhoneGap apps. He has been an active coder (contributing to Ionic’s open source code) and regularly speaks about the state of hybrid development. Max joined PhoneGap Day events to share performance tips for hybrid apps, helping bridge the Cordova and Ionic communities. Under his leadership, Ionic also created Capacitor, a modernized successor to Cordova, showing his continued commitment to cross-platform dev. By enabling web developers to build slick mobile apps, Max amplified PhoneGap’s core mission. Today, as CEO of Ionic, he remains a key influencer in the hybrid mobile world, empowering hundreds of thousands of developers.

Andre Charland

Andre Charland 1 - 12 PhoneGap Experts to Bridge Your App Ideas

Nationality: Canadian

André was the CEO and co-founder of Nitobi, the company that created PhoneGap. While not a day-to-day Cordova coder, André’s role was pivotal: he championed PhoneGap’s development from a small experiment to a project that Adobe acquired in 2011.

He strongly believed in open-sourcing the technology – under his leadership, Nitobi negotiated that PhoneGap be contributed to Apache (announced on stage with Adobe). André’s background was in software development (he co-authored an AJAX book and built developer tools at Nitobi), so he understood developers’ needs. At Adobe, he became a Director of Product Management, continuing to support PhoneGap’s ecosystem. André’s vision of a web-based mobile future and insistence on keeping PhoneGap free and open were crucial to its longevity. In short, without André Charland’s early entrepreneurial drive, PhoneGap might not have escaped that hackathon to become the global framework it is today.

Andrew Grieve

Nationality: Canadian

Andrew is a Google software engineer who significantly bolstered Cordova during his tenure working on the project. Around 2012–2015, Google dedicated Andrew to help improve Cordova’s Android and overall architecture.

He led a major refactor of the Cordova-Android platform (adding Gradle support, etc.) for the 4.0 release and optimized Cordova’s performance (e.g., faster JS-to-native bridge and better file handling). Andrew also integrated Cordova with Google’s Chrome Apps and the Crosswalk WebView to ensure cutting-edge web features were available. His contributions (among the top by commit count) greatly improved Cordova’s stability and speed. It’s rare for a big company to invest an engineer in an Apache project – thanks to Andrew’s work, Cordova smoothly navigated major OS changes and inspired confidence in hybrid apps.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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