Why I built Shift Desk — MakeLabs Blog

I used to work shifts. Not software shifts — actual hourly shifts where your pay changes based on when you clock in, whether it's a weekend, and how many hours you pushed past your usual window. And every month I'd open a calculator, try to remember my rate, and do the maths manually.

There were apps for this. I tried most of them. They all had the same problem: they were built for HR departments, not workers. Too many inputs, too much configuration, too many screens before you could see a single number.

The idea

I wanted something with a different philosophy — open the app, log the shift, see your earnings. That's it. No accounts. No cloud sync. No premium upsell on every screen. Just a tool that respects your time as much as you're trying to track it.

The core rule I set before writing a single line: if it takes more than two taps to log a shift, the UX is broken.

Building it

I built Shift Desk in Kotlin with Jetpack Compose. First version was genuinely ugly — functional, but rough. The kind of thing you ship to yourself and a few friends before you're ready to call it an app.

// First version of the core calculation. Embarrassingly simple.
fun calculatePay(hours: Double, rate: Double): Double {
    return hours * rate
}

// What it became after real feedback
fun calculatePay(
    shifts: List<Shift>,
    rate: HourlyRate,
    overrideRules: RateRules
): PaySummary { ... }
    

The jump between those two functions is basically the entire development story. Real users have real edge cases. Night differentials. Overtime thresholds. Tax estimates. Each one was a new input I had to figure out how to surface without cluttering the interface.

What I got wrong

I underestimated how long Play Store review takes for a first submission
I built the settings screen last and it shows — it's the weakest part of v1
I didn't think about tablets at all until someone emailed me about it
My first icon was terrible. I redrew it three times.

What shipped

Shift Desk v1.0 is on the Play Store. It tracks shifts, calculates pay, handles overtime, and keeps everything local on your device. 4.8 stars from the people who've reviewed it so far. That number means a lot when you built the whole thing yourself.

v2 is already in progress. The settings screen is getting rebuilt from scratch. Tablet layout is coming. And there's one feature I won't spoil yet — but shift workers are going to like it.

If you work shifts and want to try it, it's free to download. A Pro version with advanced features is available if you want to support the project.

Building this app taught me that the best software comes from actually having the problem. I didn't research the market and find a gap — I was annoyed at my own calculator and decided to fix it. That's the only reason Shift Desk exists, and I think it's the reason it works.

Why I built Shift Desk — and what I learned shipping my first app

The idea

Building it

What I got wrong

What shipped