Senior iOS / SwiftUI Engineer — Voice-Driven Consumer App (Audio + StoreKit + Offline)

# Senior iOS / SwiftUI Engineer — Voice-Driven Consumer App (Audio + StoreKit + Offline) We're building the consumer app at the core of a voice-first product, and we need a senior iOS engineer to own it end to end. This is the most product-facing role on the project, and the natural integration lead — the app imports two separate engine packages (behind defined interfaces) and ties the whole experience together. It's a long-term, substantial engagement for the right person. ## What you'd build The app is everything the user touches: onboarding and permissions, a browsable catalog of downloadable content packs, a short settings screen, a live camera-alignment screen (the app shows an alignment overlay and reads alignment data from a package — it does **not** implement the vision itself), and an intentionally minimal, ambient "in-session" screen carried by voice and audio rather than on-screen controls. The craft is in the setup flows and the **restraint** of the in-session UI. During the main experience the screen is deliberately near-empty — the app speaks, plays background audio, and responds to voice; the user isn't meant to tap the phone. A lot of the work is making that feel intentional and premium, not unfinished. The trickiest engineering lives in three places: **audio coexistence** (text-to-speech, background music, and short sound effects sharing the output gracefully, while an on-device wake-phrase listener runs at the same time without fighting the playback), **StoreKit 2 subscriptions** done properly, and **offline-first** content (packs download once, verified, then run forever with zero network calls during a session). ## Hard requirements (non-negotiable) - **Senior SwiftUI** — you've shipped at least one full, polished consumer app to the App Store. Not demos, not internal tools. **Send links.** - **StoreKit 2** — you've implemented subscriptions end to end: purchase, restore on a new device, free trial, expiry, graceful offline-at-launch. This is core, not a footnote. - **AVFoundation audio** — AVSpeechSynthesizer and/or audio-session management; comfortable making voice, music, and sound effects coexist and duck properly without stepping on each other. - **On-device speech** — Speech framework or similar always-on listening, *or* a demonstrable track record that says you'll pick it up fast. You understand the audio-session conflict between always-on listening and audio playback. - **Fully offline during a session** — zero network calls while the experience runs. Downloads and purchases happen outside sessions only. This is a privacy guarantee and a hard rule. - **Runs on modest hardware** — iPhone 11 / 12 class and up, multi-hour sessions, battery-conscious. Not a flagship-only app. - **UX restraint** — your portfolio shows taste and restraint, not screens stuffed with chrome. The in-session UI is almost empty by design. ## Strong pluses - On-device **Speech framework** / always-on voice input experience. - **Offline-first** apps — content downloaded, runs without network. - **Integration-lead** experience on a multi-module iOS project — coordinating separate packages into one app. The whole app is exactly this. - Background-audio / media-playback app experience (audio sessions are fiddly; prior scar tissue helps). - Accessibility depth (Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, captions) and localization experience. ## Please read before applying - **Not a backend role.** There is no custom server. Identity and billing run entirely through the device's App Store account; content is downloaded and run locally. If your first instinct is to stand up a backend "for convenience," this isn't the right fit. - **Not cross-platform.** Native SwiftUI only — no Flutter, no React Native. - **No cloud AI.** Everything runs natively, on-device. - This person **implements and polishes** a designed experience with strong taste — visual design and content are handled separately. You're not expected to invent the brand from nothing, but you are expected to have excellent product instincts. ## How to apply — please answer these in your proposal Skip the generic pitch. Answer these **in your own words** — short and concrete beats long and polished. I'm hiring your thinking, so please write it yourself rather than having a tool do it. **1.** An app needs to speak via text-to-speech, play a background music loop, and fire short sound effects on events — all at once, without them cutting each other off awkwardly — *while also* listening for an on-device voice command. How do you set up the audio session and manage that conflict? **2.** Walk me through a StoreKit 2 subscription with a free trial: purchase, restore on a new device, handling expiry, and what happens when there's no network at launch. (Lived experience here — vague answers tell me you haven't shipped it.) **3.** A screen is intentionally almost empty during the main experience — no buttons, the user isn't meant to touch the phone. How do you make that feel intentional and premium rather than broken or unfinished? **4.** Tell me about one polished consumer app you shipped to the App Store — ideally one with audio or subscriptions in it. What was genuinely hard about it, and what did you actually do? Send a link. A note on what good looks like: I'm reading for specifics — the actual AVAudioSession category you'd use, a real StoreKit restore edge case you hit, a time your audio playback fought your listener and how you fixed it. "I optimize for great UX" tells me nothing. A short, plain, real answer wins every time. ## The shape of the engagement This starts with a **small, paid proof-of-concept** that tests the make-or-break skills — audio coexistence and ambient/voice UX — on a modest device, with nothing product-specific in it, before any larger commitment. If it goes well, this becomes one of the most substantial engineering relationships on the project, and you'd act as the integration lead tying the whole app together. If this is the kind of careful, tasteful, audio-and-voice consumer-app work you enjoy, I'd like to hear from you.