What the role involves
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.
What they ask for
About Parrot
Parrot is the TikTok for language learning. We turn doomscrolling into fluency with personalized short-form videos. Power users scroll for 6 hours/week on Parrot. Our team of engineers have lived the frustration of ineffective apps and learning methods - we’re building the first language platform that actually works.
Full Parrot profile