Founding iOS Engineer

New York , United States
On-site

AI overview

Play a pivotal role as a founding engineer, architecting a new native iOS product and shaping the company's technical direction with direct founder collaboration.

Founding iOS Engineer

Full-Time | On-Site | New York City (Chelsea)
Salary: $180,000 – $240,000 + 0.5% – 1.5% Equity

About the Company

Our client is building an accountability protocol — a new consumer primitive that introduces financial stakes into personal goal achievement.

The company recently achieved a significant regulatory milestone, enabling launch in 46 states from day one. After months of close collaboration with regulatory counsel, they’ve established infrastructure and positioning that creates real defensibility and meaningful barriers to entry.

Backed by top-tier investors and led by founders with backgrounds at Apple, Google, and leading venture firms, the team is small (4 people), technical, and execution-focused.

The Opportunity

This is a true founding engineer role. You will build the native iOS product from the ground up and help define the technical and product direction of the company.

You are not joining to maintain features. You are joining to create the category.

What You’ll Do

  • Architect and ship high-quality, production-grade Swift code

  • Build a fast, elegant, consumer-facing native iOS app from early stage to scale

  • Own large parts of the product end-to-end

  • Collaborate directly with the cofounders on product and technical direction

  • Contribute to backend/API design to support clean and scalable interactions

  • Operate with autonomy in a zero-to-one environment

Requirements

What We’re Looking For

Experience

  • 2–8 years of software engineering experience

  • Strong track record building consumer-facing iOS or full-stack applications

  • Experience at a top-tier consumer tech company or venture-backed startup preferred

  • Demonstrated product ownership — you’ve built or owned meaningful product surfaces

  • Side projects or independent builds outside work are a strong signal

Technical Skills

  • Strong proficiency in Swift and native iOS development

  • Full-stack capability to ship features end-to-end

  • Ability to contribute to backend/API design

  • Strong product intuition and decision-making ability

(Exceptional React Native engineers willing to ramp quickly on Swift may be considered.)

Mindset

  • Cares deeply about UI, UX, polish, and performance

  • Sees a founding role as part of their long-term growth story

  • Comfortable operating in ambiguity

  • High ownership, low ego, high execution velocity

Location

  • On-site in New York City

  • Must be based in or willing to relocate to NYC

  • Visa sponsorship not guaranteed (case-by-case)

Why This Role

  • Early equity in a category-defining company

  • Direct access to experienced founders

  • Real ownership and autonomy

  • Regulatory and infrastructure advantages already established

  • Opportunity to build something that has not existed before

Equal Employment Opportunity

TopTechTalent.ai believes that all persons are entitled to equal employment opportunities. TopTechTalent.ai recruits, hires, trains, promotes, disciplines and provides other conditions of employment without regard to a person's race, color, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, or expression, age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, marital status or other classifications protected under law or Company policy. This includes providing reasonable accommodation for team members' disabilities or religious beliefs and practices.

The government requires TopTechTalent.ai to maintain information on those who seek employment with the company, including their race and sex. Accordingly, to help us comply with this requirement, we encourage you to provide us with the following self-identification information. However, submission of this information is voluntary and refusal to provide it will not affect your opportunity for employment or terms and conditions of employment, if hired. If you do submit this information, it will be kept confidential and will be used in the compilation of data for reporting requirements.

🚫 Third-party recruiters, please do not reach out for this role.

Salary
$180,000 – $240,000 per year
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