Mobile Engineer Job Description
A complete mobile engineer job description template, plus the ATS keywords hiring teams screen for and why the title usually means cross-platform, not native.
"Mobile Engineer" carries a signal most candidates miss: when a company is hiring for one native platform specifically, the posting usually says so — "iOS Engineer" or "Android Engineer." A generic "Mobile Engineer" title, especially paired with JavaScript or TypeScript in the requirements, is very often a cross-platform role built on React Native or Flutter rather than a native Swift or Kotlin position. It's not a certainty, but it's a reliable enough pattern that it's worth checking the requirements section before assuming which language you'll actually be writing.
The interview bar for mobile roles in 2026 has shifted away from "can you build a screen" toward the parts of the job that only show up once an app has real users: how you handle a release that has to clear app store review, how you profile and fix a battery or memory problem that only reproduces on certain devices, and how you design data that has to survive a bad connection without corrupting itself. A candidate who has only built demo apps in a simulator is usually unprepared for this half of the interview, because none of it comes up until an app is live.
One thing worth knowing if you're weighing offers: React Native or Flutter experience is valuable and in demand, but it doesn't transfer to a native-only role as cleanly as candidates sometimes assume. A company hiring specifically for Swift or Kotlin will usually still want to see real native work, not adjacent cross-platform experience, even from a strong candidate. If you want to keep both paths open, look for roles — like this one — that include some native module work alongside the cross-platform framework.
Verrantine · Raleigh, NC
Full-time · Hybrid
$118,000 – $158,000
About the role
Verrantine is hiring a Mobile Engineer to build our companion app, a React Native application shipping to both the App Store and Google Play from one codebase. You'll work on features end to end — screen, data layer, and native module code when React Native's APIs don't cover what we need.
This is a two-person mobile team reporting into the same engineering org as our web product, based in Raleigh with two days a week in the office. The app is eighteen months old with a real, if modest, install base, so releases matter and a bad one is a support-ticket problem, not a theoretical one.
What you'll do
- Build and maintain features in React Native across both iOS and Android from a single codebase.
- Write native module code in Swift or Kotlin for the small set of features React Native doesn't cover well.
- Own the app's local data layer, including how it behaves when a user's connection is slow or drops mid-session.
- Manage app store and Play Store releases, including the review process and what to do when a build is rejected.
- Profile and fix performance issues — startup time, memory, battery drain — using real device data, not just the simulator.
- Write automated tests for both business logic and critical user flows.
- Set up and maintain crash reporting, and treat a spike in crash-free rate as a page-worthy incident.
- Work with the backend team on API contracts, including what the app should do when a call fails.
What we're looking for
- Three or more years building and shipping production mobile applications.
- Strong working knowledge of React Native, including when to drop into native code instead of fighting the framework.
- Comfort with either Swift or Kotlin for native module work.
- Experience managing an app through app store and Play Store review and release.
- Practical experience handling unreliable network conditions in a mobile data layer — caching, retries, and conflict resolution on reconnect.
- Familiarity with mobile-specific debugging: device logs, crash reports, and issues that only reproduce on physical hardware.
Nice to have
- Prior experience in a fully native iOS or Android role, in addition to cross-platform work.
- Experience with push notifications end to end — APNs and FCM, not just the client-side subscription.
- Familiarity with Fastlane or a similar mobile CI/CD pipeline.
- Experience with local persistence libraries such as SQLite, Realm or WatermelonDB.
- Some accessibility experience specific to mobile — VoiceOver or TalkBack, not just web accessibility knowledge.
- Experience mentoring engineers newer to mobile development.
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employee premiums covered in full.
- 401(k) with a 4% company match, vested immediately.
- Hybrid schedule: two days a week in the Raleigh office.
- Company-provided test devices for both iOS and Android.
- Twenty days of paid time off plus company holidays.
Salary range
As posted for this sample role. Real pay varies by employer, location and experience.
$118,000–$158,000/ yr
ATS keywords for this role
The applicant tracking system (ATS) — the recruiting software a hiring team searches and filters applicants with — will screen for these. Weight shows how central each one is to this specific posting.
Required and central (2)
Important (9)
Mentioned in passing (8)
Frequently asked questions
Does "Mobile Engineer" mean I'll be writing Swift, Kotlin, or JavaScript?
Check the requirements section, not the title. A posting titled specifically "iOS Engineer" or "Android Engineer" almost always means native Swift or Kotlin work. A generic "Mobile Engineer" title paired with JavaScript or TypeScript in the requirements is very often a cross-platform role built on React Native or Flutter — as this one is.
Is cross-platform mobile experience as valuable as native experience?
In the market generally, yes — React Native and Flutter roles are common and pay comparably to native roles at similar seniority. What doesn't transfer cleanly is moving from cross-platform into a native-only role later; a company hiring specifically for Swift or Kotlin usually wants to see real native work, not adjacent framework experience.
How important is it to know both iOS and Android well?
It depends on the framework. In a native shop, iOS and Android are typically separate roles and separate hiring pipelines entirely. In a cross-platform role like this one, you're expected to reason about both platforms' quirks even though most of the code is shared, because the small part that differs is usually where the hard bugs live.
What makes app store review different from a normal software release?
You don't fully control the timeline. A server-side deploy ships when you say it does; a mobile release goes into a review queue that can take anywhere from a few hours to several days, and can be rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the code works. Experienced mobile engineers plan releases with that uncertainty built in, rather than treating submission as the last step.
This was a sample. Your resume should be tailored to the real thing.
Rezi Ninja reads an actual job posting and rewrites your resume to match it, with a Ninja Score so you know it lands before you hit send. Free to start, with the AI usage included.