iOS Developer

Okara, a private, faster & safer chat interface to access the latest open-source AI models, is looking for an iOS Engineer to build our native mobile experience.

What you will do

• Build a fast, polished iOS app for conversational AI - think iMessage-level responsiveness with LLM complexity underneath.
• Implement streaming responses, conversation persistence, and seamless sync across devices.
• Design intuitive UX for multimodal inputs (text, voice, images) and model selection.
• Integrate with our backend APIs; handle auth, rate limiting, and offline scenarios gracefully.
• Optimize for battery life, network efficiency, and low-latency inference on device where possible.
• Work closely with design and backend teams to shape the product; you'll have meaningful input on what we build.
• Own app store releases, crash monitoring, and performance metrics; iterate based on real user feedback.

You are a fit if you are

• Have shipped iOS apps to the App Store that people actually use - ideally consumer-facing products.
• Write clean, maintainable Swift and understand modern iOS patterns (SwiftUI preferred, UIKit fine).
• Know how to make network-heavy apps feel fast: streaming, caching, optimistic updates, background processing.
• Care about the details - animations, haptics, keyboard handling, dark mode.
• Understand mobile constraints and make smart tradeoffs between features, performance, and battery life.
• Can debug the hard stuff: memory leaks, threading issues, edge cases in network conditions.
• Take pride in privacy and security - you understand keychain, data encryption, and responsible data handling on device.

Nice to have

• Experience building chat or messaging interfaces (especially with streaming/real-time updates).
• Familiarity with on-device ML (Core ML, MLX) or local inference optimization.
• Background in accessibility or designing for diverse user needs.
• Open source contributions or side projects we can look at.
• Experience with cross-platform considerations if we expand to iPad/Mac.

Why this role matters

Most AI chat apps are just web wrappers with clunky UX. We're building something that feels native, respects your privacy, and works beautifully even on spotty connections. You'll have the freedom to craft an experience that sets a new standard for AI interfaces on mobile.