Sr. Native Mobile Engineer (Android & iOS) (Remote)
Senior native mobile engineer who owns Mode Mobile's consumer VPN apps end-to-end on Android and iOS, integrating a custom Go networking engine (Shadowsocks/WireGuard) via native libraries, while improving automated testing, release processes, and connection reliability for 10M+ installs.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Remote
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Category
- Mobile
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 5+ years of professional senior mobile engineering experience delivering native applications on both Android and iOS
- Android: Kotlin (and Java), Jetpack Compose and XML views (incl. legacy XML to Compose migration), Coroutines, Flow, Koin, Dagger/Hilt, Retrofit, Room, WorkManager, foreground services
- iOS: Swift, UIKit and SwiftUI (incl. UIKit-to-SwiftUI migration), Swift Concurrency (async/await), RxSwift + RxCocoa, Combine, Core Data or equivalent, Keychain
- Platform networking and VPN APIs: Android VpnService, iOS NetworkExtension / Packet Tunnel Provider, always-on VPN, kill switch, split tunneling, and integrating native libraries (.aar / .framework /
- GitHub for version control and pull-request based workflows
- SOLID, clean coding, testing, automation and instrumentation (Espresso/UI Automator, XCTest/XCUITest)
- Publishing and maintaining apps on Google Play and Apple App Store, including release management, VPN store compliance, and handling review rejections
- Working knowledge of VPN protocols and networking fundamentals: WireGuard, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks or similar, TCP/IP, DNS, TLS
- Experience with subscription and in-app purchase flows (StoreKit 2, Google Play Billing, RevenueCat or similar), paywalls, free trials, and attribution/analytics SDKs (Amplitude, Firebase, AppsFlyer/A
- Agentic AI proficiency: day-to-day use of AI agents (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot agents) with strong judgment verifying AI output before production
- Candid and empathetic communication, excited to join a startup
Nice to have
- Taking over existing mobile codebases from the acquired team, closing knowledge gaps, and bringing apps into Mode's engineering standards (strongly preferred)
- Experience shipping or maintaining a consumer VPN, proxy, or privacy product, especially censorship-circumvention tooling and traffic obfuscation (strongly preferred)
- Experience with TunnelKit / OpenVPNAdapter, wireguard-apple / wireguard-android, gomobile-built libraries, or userspace network stacks (lwIP, gVisor netstack) (strongly preferred)
- Reading or writing Go (strongly preferred)
- Web frontend experience (React / TypeScript) for website, account portal, and landing pages
- Kotlin Multiplatform or other approaches to sharing logic across the two apps
- CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions, Fastlane, Bitrise, or Xcode Cloud, and setting up pipelines from scratch
- Firebase Crashlytics, Remote Config, and A/B testing / feature flags
- Localization at scale (15+ languages) and building for low-end devices and unreliable networks
Full description
Who We Are (Mode.Inc)
Mode is a fast-growing technology company building businesses at the intersection of AI, data, mobile apps, and digital experiences. Our portfolio of mobile apps and digital products reaches 100M+ monthly active users across a global audience. We continue to accelerate growth through product innovation, strategic acquisitions, and emerging business opportunities.
Mode was recognized by Deloitte as the #1 fastest-growing software company in North America on the 2023 Technology Fast 500. Today, we are building our next phase of growth, including expanding Mode's AI and data business and developing direct relationships with companies that can benefit from the data and capabilities we have built.
Our Team and Culture Drive Our Success
Our team is the heart of our culture. We value innovation, collaboration, and curiosity, with a passion for getting things done. We strive to hire and cultivate the best team members and foster a culture of open communication and transparency. We are driven and hard-working but also committed to having fun along the way. We allow OKRs to guide us, assume positive intent, sometimes agree to disagree and commit, honor our commitments, seek to accomplish more with less, and encourage everyone to speak up as our team owns our company’s success.
You can read more about our team and how we work here.
The Role
Mode.Inc is looking for a Senior Native Mobile Engineer to join the team taking ownership of our newly acquired VPN product and the additional apps we will be acquiring. You will own the Android and iOS mobile domain end-to-end: a consumer VPN with 10M+ installs, 1,000+ servers in 45+ countries, and users in some of the most restrictive network environments in the world.
This is an ownership-heavy role: you'll inherit existing mobile codebases, understand how the apps interact with the VPN networking stack, close knowledge gaps from the acquired team, improve engineering quality and release processes, and ship product improvements that directly impact users and the business.
The apps sit on top of a custom Go networking engine (Shadowsocks / WireGuard) delivered as a native library, plus OpenVPN via TunnelKit on iOS, and you will be the person who makes that engine feel fast, reliable, and effortless to users. We are a user-facing product-led team, and we are looking for someone who is passionate about building private, secure products that people depend on every day.
You’ll work closely with the backend engineer, DevOps/network engineer, product managers, designers, marketing, operations, and several stakeholders to define and execute according to our strategic roadmap to accelerate our future growth.
Who You Are and What You’ll Do
- You are passionate about giving people private, secure, and unrestricted access to the internet. You care about your users and the trust they place in the product.