ego
AI applied research lab building synthetic sapience; human-like AI
Member of Technical Staff: iOS Engineer
About the role
Member of Technical Staff: iOS Engineer (Ego) Location: San Francisco, CA (hybrid) · Reports to: Founding team
About the role
Ego AI is a YC-backed applied AI research lab building the behavioral infrastructure for AI companions and agents. We work at the intersection of real-time conversational instincts, memory, and persistent identity; the layer that makes AI feel genuinely alive. We're a small, fast-moving team and we're defining a new category of human-AI interaction.
What you'll do
- Own the iOS surface for Ronin — our suite of AI agents — from design handoff to production
- Work directly with our designer and backend engineer to implement high-fidelity designs with precision and speed
- Build and maintain the core mobile experience: real-time voice interfaces, conversational flows, and agent interactions
- Ship fast, iterate with the team, and take full ownership of the mobile codebase
What we're looking for
Must have
- Shipped at least one consumer iOS app with real users
- Strong SwiftUI fundamentals and comfort owning a codebase end-to-end
- Ability to implement high-fidelity designs faithfully — pixel precision matters
- Always-ship mindset: you close loops, don't leave things in draft, and take pride in getting things out the door
Nice to have
- Experience building agentic or LLM-powered features on mobile
- Background in consumer apps — social, utility, or anything with high daily engagement
- Familiarity with real-time audio or voice interfaces
- Comfort working in a fast-moving, early-stage environment where the product is still being definedProjects this hire will own
Use AI tools freely. We do. You will walk us through the design and defend every trade-off, so own each decision in the repo.
About the interview
How we hire
- Intro chat (15-30 min).
- Take-home: build a durable tool-using agent.
- Live pairing (45 min): extend your own submission.
- Behavioral interview
- Founder conversation + references.
About ego
Ego is building an Infinite Game - a persistent virtual 3D world where lifelike AI agents are able to interact with players and each other to build their own relationships, communities, and games within the game. Our embodied AI agents can perceive the world in 3D, reason like a human, and write scripting code directly into the game engine.
We're looking for someone with expertise in computer vision, transformer models, and AI agent development to create a versatile AI system capable of real-time perception, reasoning, and action execution within various 3D game environments. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in full stack engineering, applied research, reinforcement learning, and experience with cutting-edge LLM-based systems. This role will involve pushing the boundaries of AI in gaming, similar to projects like Minecraft Voyager, while integrating seamlessly with our existing game development ecosystem.
If you’re passionate about building AI agents in 3D worlds, thrive on fast-paced innovation, and enjoy collaborating in a tight-knit team of game developers, designers, and technical artists, we’d love to hear from you!
Feel free to learn more about ego on our YC launch page:
https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/KeD-ego-an-ai-native-3d-simulation-engine-getting-us-closer-to-the-matrix-one-pixel-at-a-time We’re looking for someone passionate about playing and making games who ships fast, is interested in trying new technologies, and works well in a small team of game developers, designers, and technical artists. If you like the sound of making games, pushing the boundaries of gaming technology, and you thrive in a fast-paced startup environment, we'd love to hear from you!
If you want to learn more about ego, feel free to take a look at our YC launch page: https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/KeD-ego-an-ai-native-3d-simulation-engine-getting-us-closer-to-the-matrix-one-pixel-at-a-time
