Principal Mobile Application Developer

Description

The company designs and sells connected lifestyle products for homes worldwide, under the Shark and Ninja brands. It is headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts, has more than 4,100 associates, and sells through major retailers online and in stores, as well as through distributors.

The company is building its work around AI, and it expects people to test new tools and push what is possible for consumers.

The team combines hardware, software and digital experiences, and uses AI-driven processes to speed up design, coding and testing.

This is a senior individual contributor role. You will own the mobile app's architecture and decide how new products are brought into it, from feature design and device behavior to connectivity flows and the quality consumers actually feel. You will work with product teams to onboard new products, and with the App Architect to define engineering patterns that every team can follow consistently.

Responsibilities

• Own the mobile app architecture that new products are built on, covering features, device experiences, pairing and provisioning, and consumer-facing behavior from launch onward.
• Make the architecture and technology decisions for the app, and keep building hands-on in React Native, Expo and TypeScript.
• Own how new products are declared in the app through capability-based device definitions, so screens are composed from capabilities instead of product-specific code.
• Act as the mobile technical lead for onboarding and supporting new products, working with embedded, cloud, hardware and product partners to define device behavior and resolve tradeoffs.
• Define the reusable components, patterns and libraries needed, and decide what to build, refactor or replace, extending the layered component library and semantic theming system instead of adding one-off UI.
• Write, document and maintain engineering patterns and best practices with the App Architect, and drive their adoption across teams.
• Own quality end to end: test and automation strategy, crash and performance targets, staged rollout, and field issues reported from real homes.
• Personally solve the hardest problems, including BLE and WiFi reliability, versioned device protocols, real-time state over WebSocket, and bugs that only appear on real hardware.
• Lead technical research and proof-of-concept work, building prototypes to de-risk major architecture decisions before full production.
• Mentor mid-level and senior engineers through design reviews, code reviews and pairing, and help them take ownership of features.
• Work with distributed teams across regions, including the UK and China, to align roadmaps, share patterns and keep delivery coordinated across time zones.
• Champion AI-assisted workflows and build AI skills across engineering through shared practices, tooling and coaching.
• Write design docs for significant features, drive decisions to closure, and be accountable for how they perform in production.

Requirements

• A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field. An advanced degree is welcome but not required.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with deep React Native and TypeScript expertise for iOS and Android at consumer scale.
• A record of owning the architecture of a mobile app used by many consumers, from design through launch and long-term support.
• Proven technical leadership: you set direction, guide others through design and code review, and are the trusted decision-maker in your scope.
• Strong grasp of full-stack architecture and mobile-to-cloud integration, including API contract design, client caching and invalidation, real-time state sync, and failure and retry handling on unreliable connections.
• Working knowledge of the mobile toolchain and release pipeline: Xcode, Android Studio, Git, Gradle, CocoaPods, Swift Package Manager, CI/CD, staged rollout and production diagnostics.
• Native depth in Swift and/or Kotlin, enough to debug across the bridge and write platform-specific code when a product needs it.
• Good judgment on when to build, reuse or replace, and the discipline to document code so others understand it.
• A genuine interest in creating consumer-friendly, connected product experiences.
• Curiosity, adaptability and a drive to join a top-tier engineering team.
• Preferred: depth in the Expo ecosystem, including Expo Router with typed routes, config plugins and custom native modules, plus TanStack Query, Reanimated, and Xcode and Android Studio build systems.
• Preferred: experience with binary protocol work, including parsing and versioning device payloads and changing a protocol without breaking firmware already shipped.
• Preferred: substantial experience with connected devices, IoT ecosystems or device-to-app connectivity in production.
• Preferred: hands-on BLE and WiFi provisioning experience, including failure modes that only show up in real homes.
• Preferred: experience with Rust, C/C++ or other systems languages, and comfort working alongside firmware teams.
• Preferred: background in robotics, consumer electronics or smart home products.
• Preferred: experience taking a new hardware product's app from zero to shipped.
• Preferred: experience using AI-assisted development tools to speed up design, coding and testing without lowering quality.

Conditions

Annual base salary range: $190,000 - $210,000 USD. Starting pay within this range depends on factors such as geography or market, skills, education, experience and other qualifications.

Benefits are subject to eligibility requirements.

The company is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision insurance, flexible spending accounts, and an HSA with company contribution.
• 401(k) with company matching, an employee stock purchase program, and life and AD&D insurance.
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance, generous paid time off, company holidays and parental leave.
• Identity theft protection, pet insurance, pre-paid legal insurance, back-up child and eldercare days, product discounts and a referral bonus program.
• Learning programs for personal and professional growth, and a wellness program.