About the Project

We are partnering with a startup studio building an innovative AI-native consumer mobile experience in the pet-tech and digital companion space.

The product combines virtual pet ownership, interactive gameplay, personalization, Generative AI-powered interactions, and emotionally engaging experiences into a mobile-first platform designed to create long-term daily engagement. Users will nurture digital companions that evolve over time, engage in intelligent AI conversations, unlock personalized experiences, customize their pets, and participate in dynamic activities that blend game mechanics, emotional connection, and cutting-edge AI.

The founding team has successfully built and scaled multiple technology companies and is now investing heavily in creating a category-defining consumer product. Over the next 12 months, the focus will be rapid iteration, polished gameplay experiences, user retention, AI-powered engagement, and building an iOS application that users genuinely love.

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Role and Responsibilities

• Own the iOS application end-to-end, from architecture decisions to App Store releases.
• Develop highly polished, game-like mobile experiences using Swift and modern iOS frameworks.
• Build smooth gameplay systems, animations, interactions, and progression mechanics that maximize user engagement and retention.
• Integrate Generative AI capabilities into the mobile experience, enabling intelligent conversations, personalized interactions, and adaptive virtual companion behaviors.
• Collaborate closely with backend AI engineers to build seamless experiences powered by modern LLMs, agent-based architectures, and AI services.
• Build engaging AI-powered gameplay mechanics where virtual companions learn, react, evolve, and create personalized experiences based on user interactions.
• Optimize client-side AI experiences, including streaming responses, latency management, caching strategies, and conversational interfaces.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, backend, growth, and game design teams to transform gameplay concepts into delightful user experiences.
• Implement systems for virtual pets, inventory, achievements, rewards, progression, customization, daily quests, and long-term engagement loops.
• Create fluid animations, responsive interactions, and high-performance rendering across a wide range of Apple devices.
• Integrate backend APIs, analytics platforms, feature flags, remote configuration, push notifications, and monetization systems.
• Optimize application performance, battery usage, rendering performance, and memory consumption.
• Design scalable mobile architecture that supports rapid experimentation and continuous product evolution.
• Participate in A/B testing, user engagement optimization, analytics instrumentation, and experimentation initiatives.
• Maintain high engineering standards through testing, CI/CD, code reviews, release automation, and production monitoring.
• Collaborate with artists, designers, AI engineers, and product stakeholders to deliver an exceptional AI-native mobile gaming experience.

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What We're Looking For

Must-Haves

• 4+ years of professional iOS development experience building and shipping production mobile applications.
• Strong expertise in Swift and modern iOS development.
• Experience developing interactive, animation-heavy, or game-oriented mobile applications.
• Strong understanding of UIKit and/or SwiftUI.
• Experience with animation and graphics frameworks such as Core Animation, SpriteKit, SceneKit, or Metal.
• Experience building gameplay systems such as achievements, progression, inventories, virtual economies, customization, or reward mechanics.
• Strong understanding of mobile performance optimization, rendering pipelines, memory management, and responsive UI.
• Experience integrating REST APIs, GraphQL APIs, analytics platforms, feature flags, and remote configuration.
• Experience integrating AI-powered APIs or cloud services into mobile applications.
• Understanding of Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), streaming APIs, and conversational user experiences.
• Experience publishing and maintaining applications on the Apple App Store.
• Strong product mindset with attention to UX, user psychology, engagement, and retention.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced startup environment.

Nice-to-Haves

• Professional experience using Unity for iOS game development.
• Experience with Godot Engine, Unreal Engine, Cocos2d-x, or other game engines.
• Experience integrating providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, or similar LLM platforms.
• Familiarity with AI agent architectures, function/tool calling, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), or conversational AI systems.
• Experience building AI-powered gameplay mechanics, NPCs, virtual assistants, or intelligent digital companions.
• Experience developing casual games, idle games, simulation games, virtual pet games, or highly engaging consumer applications.
• Experience implementing subscriptions, in-app purchases, virtual currencies, and mobile monetization strategies.
• Experience with Firebase, GraphQL, AWS, or modern backend platforms.
• Experience scaling mobile applications from MVP to large consumer audiences.
• Startup or founding engineer experience.
• Strong interest in gaming, AI, consumer products, behavioral psychology, and interaction design.

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Preferred Technical Stack

Core Mobile

• Swift
• SwiftUI
• UIKit
• Core Animation
• SpriteKit
• SceneKit
• Metal
• StoreKit

Gaming Technologies

Experience with one or more of the following is highly valued:

• Unity (most widely used for cross-platform mobile games)
• SpriteKit (Apple's native 2D game engine)
• SceneKit (Apple's native 3D framework)
• Godot Engine
• Unreal Engine
• Cocos2d-x

AI & Backend

• OpenAI API
• Anthropic Claude API
• Google Gemini
• REST APIs
• GraphQL
• WebSockets
• Server-Sent Events (SSE)
• Firebase

Development

• CI/CD Pipelines
• Crashlytics
• Feature Flags
• Analytics Platforms
• Remote Configuration

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Why Join Us?

• Help build a next-generation AI-native consumer application that combines gaming, virtual companions, and Generative AI into a category-defining product.
• Join a proven founding team with a strong track record of building and scaling successful technology companies.
• Own a critical part of the product and have significant influence over architecture, gameplay systems, AI experiences, and technical strategy.
• Build highly engaging mobile experiences that blend emotional connection, personalization, AI, and modern game design.
• Work at the intersection of mobile engineering, game development, Generative AI, and consumer product design.
• Collaborate with experienced engineers, designers, AI specialists, and product leaders in a fast-moving environment focused on shipping exceptional products.
• Opportunity to grow into a senior technical leadership or founding engineer role as the company scales.
• Remote-first culture with flexibility, autonomy, ownership, and rapid decision-making.

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Application Instructions

Please submit:

• Your résumé/CV highlighting your iOS development and interactive mobile application experience.
• Links to App Store applications, mobile games, portfolio, GitHub, or other relevant work samples.
• Your availability (start date) and expected compensation.
• A brief description of the most engaging consumer mobile application or game you have built, your specific contributions, and any AI-powered features you have implemented.
• Any startup, gaming, Generative AI, or high-growth product experience you'd like to highlight (optional but highly valued).