Founding Mobile Engineer

Founding Mobile Engineer

About Parrot

Parrot is building the TikTok for language learning: real native videos, interactive subtitles, and AI-generated activities that help people learn the same way they learned their first language.

We believe in immersion-first learning, grounded in second-language acquisition research and comprehensible input. Our goal is to make learning natural, fun, and effective, powered by real content, not artificial drills.

We launched in February 2025, already have thousands of active users, are backed by Y Combinator, and are now hiring our first Founding Mobile Engineer to join the core team and help us scale to millions of learners.

Why This Role Matters

Engineering at Parrot is not just about implementing tickets. It is core to how the product feels, performs, and grows.

As our Founding Mobile Engineer, you will:

• Own the mobile product experience from idea to App Store
• Build beautiful, fluid, interactive experiences that feel magical
• Work directly with the founders to shape product direction
• Push the limits of React Native, Swift, video, animation, and AI-assisted development
• Set the technical standard for our mobile app and future engineering team

This is a high-ownership role with real authorship.

What You’ll Work On

You will work across the full product lifecycle:

• Build and ship mobile features from concept to production
• Create polished, high-performance interactions, animations, and video experiences
• Profile, debug, and optimize the app so key interactions feel smooth at 60fps
• Partner with the founders on product decisions, not just implementation
• Test ruthlessly and catch bugs before users do
• Trace issues through the stack when they slip through
• Use AI tools to move faster, explore ideas, and increase your output

Our app is iOS-first, built in React Native with native Swift modules where performance demands it. You’ll work on animation, scroll performance, video playback, interactive subtitles, and UI details where every frame matters.

We believe the best consumer products feel effortless. Engineering should make the product faster, smoother, simpler, and more delightful.

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for an engineer who combines strong frontend craft with serious technical depth and cares deeply about building a consumer product that feels incredible.

Core Strengths

• 2+ years building and shipping mobile apps professionally
• Strong React Native experience
• iOS experience strongly preferred
• Deep love for frontend craft, including animation, transitions, scroll feel, and UX details
• Strong TypeScript skills
• Comfort working with native iOS code when needed
• Strong testing instincts
• Ability to ship quickly without shipping broken
• High ownership in a fast-moving environment

Ideally you should have shipped real code to real users.

Mobile Craft & Performance

You care about how software feels.

You understand that in a consumer product, the difference between “good” and “magical” can be the difference between a user who churns and one who tells all their friends.

You likely:

• Notice dropped frames
• Care about scroll performance
• Sweat animation timing and interaction details
• Reach for the profiler before guessing
• Enjoy understanding rendering performance under the hood
• Can debug issues across React Native, native iOS, networking, and backend systems when needed

We want someone who treats performance and polish as part of the product, not an afterthought.

Product & Ownership Mindset

You are not here to wait for tickets.

You will work directly with the founders to understand user problems, scope solutions, make product decisions, build the feature, test it, ship it, and watch real learners use it.

You likely:

• Move fast without needing heavy process
• Ask sharp product questions
• Care about activation, retention, and user progress
• Think from first principles
• Take responsibility for outcomes, not just code
• Want to build something from the ground up

Speed and reliability are not tradeoffs for you. They are both the standard.

AI-Native Engineering

We move quickly and expect engineers to use modern tools aggressively.

You should already be using AI tools in your daily workflow and thinking seriously about what engineering looks like over the next few years.

Expected tools include:

• Claude Code
• Codex
• Cursor
• Custom AI agents

Every engineer gets unlimited AI tokens. We expect you to push the limits of AI-assisted development, not treat it as a side tool.

Technologies We Use

You do not need to know all of these. Your focus is frontend mobile, but as a founding engineer, you’ll be expected to work across the stack when needed.

• React Native
• Expo
• Expo Router
• React Native Reanimated
• TypeScript
• Swift and native iOS modules
• Go
• PostgreSQL
• Temporal
• Legend State
• TanStack React Query
• RevenueCat
• PostHog
• Sentry
• Xcode
• React Native dev tools
• Flipper
• Platform debuggers
• Network inspectors
• Git
• GitHub Actions
• EAS
• Docker

The Kind of Engineer Who Thrives Here

You likely:

• Have built something you’re proud of
• Care deeply about craft
• Move fast and learn faster
• Are low-ego and high-output
• Like working directly with users, founders, and product decisions
• Want meaningful ownership in an early-stage company
• Are excited by AI-native engineering
• Want to help define the technical culture of a company from the beginning

We value thoughtful collaboration, humility, and ambition.

Bonus

• Experience with consumer mobile apps
• Experience with video-heavy products
• Experience building native iOS modules
• Strong eye for design and interaction quality
• Interest in language learning or education
• Experience at a venture-backed startup
• Side projects, apps, startups, or open-source work that show you build because you love building

Why Parrot

• Ground-floor role: you would be our first engineering hire
• Backed by Y Combinator
• Thousands of active users and growing fast
• AI-native team with unlimited tokens and agents in the workflow
• In-person team in San Francisco
• $180K to $220K base salary
• 0.5% to 2.0% equity depending on experience

As the team grows, this role can grow into technical leadership, engineering culture, architecture, and team-building. If you have ever wanted to look back and say, “I built that from the ground up,” this is that moment.

Visa

TN visa and H1B transfer visa, if already in the US, are OK.

No other visa options at this time.

About the Interviews

• Initial call: 30 mins
• 1-hour app build
• Meet the team on call
• 4-hour in-office build
• Lunch with the team

1. Prescreen
2. 1 hour app build
3. 4 hour in office build + Lunch with the team