Senior Mobile Full-Stack Engineer (iOS + Backend) (PHP)

🧠 BRAYN is an AI-powered growth platform helping the next generation build career skills, practice real-world situations, and move forward with more clarity. We combine mobile product experience, cognitive science, gamified learning, AI coaches, and systems that help users turn effort into visible progress.

We are an AI-native organization built on a proven product stack. Our mobile app and backend run on mature, battle-tested technologies (Swift/UIKit, Drupal/PHP) — and on top of that, we use frontier AI tools and agentic workflows across the whole engineering process: coding, testing, documentation, and decision-making. AI is not a side tool for us — it is part of how we build, test, document, make decisions, and move faster as a small team.

We are looking for a senior mobile engineer with strong iOS production experience, real backend hands-on ability, and practical AI-native workflow.

This is a mobile-first full-stack role. iOS is the foundation, but your work will also touch backend APIs, configuration, integrations, release readiness, and AI-powered product flows. We are looking for a mature senior developer who has strong engineering fundamentals and has built AI expertise on top of them — using AI tools and agentic systems as a multiplier, not as a replacement for technical judgment.

What you will own

You will own mobile feature delivery end-to-end:

• implement iOS flows in Swift/UIKit;
• work with existing iOS architecture and legacy code;
• integrate backend APIs and help shape API contracts;
• contribute to backend changes when a feature requires it;
• work with Firebase/configuration layers;
• integrate AI-powered product flows, including text and voice coach experiences;
• debug issues across app logic, API, configuration, analytics, and release layers;
• prepare features for QA, TestFlight, and App Store release;
• improve technical quality while still shipping product work.

Must-have

• Strong commercial iOS experience with Swift and UIKit.
• Experience with real production mobile applications.
• Ability to own iOS feature delivery end-to-end: app logic, UI flow, API integration, edge cases, debugging, and release preparation.
• Experience working with legacy code: refactoring, stabilizing, debugging, improving performance, and shipping without unnecessary rewrites.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs, mobile/backend integration patterns, auth flows, error handling, retries, caching, and release impact.
• Ability to think about API as a contract between backend and mobile app: data structure, required/optional fields, error states, backward compatibility, edge cases, and expected app behavior.
• Real backend hands-on experience. You do not need to be a backend specialist, but you must have written or changed server-side logic, APIs, scripts, services, or backend-adjacent functionality in a production or production-like environment.
• Strong engineering ownership: you clarify requirements, understand dependencies, surface risks, communicate trade-offs, and drive features to production-ready state.
• Practical AI-native engineering workflow with tools like Claude, Cursor, Copilot, ChatGPT, or agentic systems — with the judgment to verify, review, and own the output.
• Ability to work in a startup environment with changing priorities, imperfect systems, and high responsibility.
• Fluent Russian for team collaboration and professional English for documentation, product discussions, and technical materials.

Nice to have

• Experience with Drupal, PHP, Pantheon, or similar CMS/API backend stacks.
• Experience with Firebase Remote Config, feature flags, environment configuration, or experiment configuration.
• Experience with AI integrations, LLM-powered features, AI coach flows, voice AI, chat-like products, or near-real-time user interactions.
• Experience with Amplitude, event tracking, product analytics, or funnel debugging.
• Experience with CI/CD for iOS: Fastlane, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, automated builds, or release pipelines.
• Experience with backend infrastructure concepts: MariaDB, Redis, Solr, Varnish, caching layers, queues, or monitoring.
• Experience in EdTech, gamified products, rewards, learning products, career development products, or engagement-driven mobile products.
• Experience working as the main mobile engineer or mobile owner in a small product team.

You will fit well if

• You are a strong iOS/mobile engineer who wants broader ownership.
• You enjoy building real product features, not just isolated technical tasks.
• You are comfortable working across mobile, backend, configuration, QA, and release boundaries.
• You can work with legacy systems without getting stuck in frustration or endless rewrites.
• You use AI tools seriously and practically — not as a shortcut around engineering expertise, but as a multiplier on top of it.

What you will get

• A core role in a small AI-native team with high trust, high responsibility, and direct product impact.
• Hands-on experience with AI-native engineering: agentic workflows, AI-assisted development, and company-level AI tooling applied to a real production product — not a greenfield demo. Building this expertise inside a real product will give you a strong competitive advantage as an engineer.
• Remote-first, async-friendly work: we keep meetings to a minimum, rely on clear written communication, and trust people to work in a way that helps them do their best work.
• Competitive salary.

Compensation: competitive, based on seniority, relevant experience, and contract setup. Salary/rate range will be shared with selected candidates before the first interview, in line with applicable pay transparency requirements.