Senior iOS (Swift, Metal) Developer

Required minimum work experience: 5 years

FaceApp is a global innovator in portrait perfection - blending advanced neural network technology with ease of use. Our team has leading expertise in machine learning and mobile interfaces, and our goal is to make mobile photography readily accessible to all mobile users beyond those with artistic professional skills. Our mission is to create the best yet easy-to-use selfie and portrait editor. Our workplace is a creative environment for developing high-quality products. We are looking for like-minded people who are ready to join our friendly and passionate team in Limassol (Cyprus).

FaceApp is the most popular selfie editing app and the top app with more than 1B+ downloads. It offers a fantastic set of highly photorealistic filters with “simple for you and complicated in the background” photo processing achieved via single taps. The app is available in 34 languages for free and as a subscription on iOS and Android devices.

We really appreciate our team and the relationships within it, and we hope that you, too, know how to build work in the key of a trusting and friendly atmosphere.

A few facts about us:

• TOP app at 154 countries for iOS and at 99 countries for Android (including the USA, Great Britain, EU, Brazil, South East Asia);
• App of the Year at App Store and Google Play;
• State-of-art technology photo editing.

About the Opportunity

Join a small, technically excellent team building a high-quality photo application that combines advanced image processing with a clean, user-friendly interface. You’ll be a core member of the mobile engineering group and own critical parts of the iOS product — from low-level rendering pipelines to app architecture, performance, and delivery.

The Impact You’ll Make

As a Senior iOS Developer, you’ll shape how our app renders and processes images on-device, improving both quality and performance for millions of users. Your work will directly affect the user experience for core features such as real-time filters, advanced editing tools, and photo export pipelines. You will establish patterns and standards for high-performance mobile graphics and drive technical decisions that enable the product to scale while remaining responsive on a wide range of devices.

Core Responsibilities

Building the Foundation

• Architect, implement and maintain core iOS subsystems with a focus on photo processing, rendering, and GPU acceleration;
• Design and ship Metal-based rendering pipelines, custom shaders, and GPU compute workloads where appropriate.

Delivering High-Performance Features

• Implement efficient, low-latency image processing flows (real-time preview, background export, incremental processing);
• Profile, optimize, and reduce memory/CPU footprint for complex workflows on modern and older iOS devices.

Technical Leadership and Standards

• Define and enforce best practices for architecture, code quality, testing, and performance.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate with a cross-functional team (backend, ML, QA, designers, and product) to integrate client-server features and optimize data exchange;
• Work closely with QA to build reproducible performance tests and automated checks for rendering correctness and resource usage.

Technical Requirements

Essential Skills

• Expert-level proficiency in Swift, and extensive experience with Xcode;
• Solid experience with client-server interaction (networking, data synchronization, REST/HTTP/WebSockets);
• Deep understanding of common design patterns used in mobile development;
• Proven experience with multithreaded programming (GCD, NSOperation, or equivalents) and approaches to avoid data races, race conditions and deadlocks.

System Design & Architecture

• Experience designing modular, testable codebases and reusable component systems;
• Knowledge of memory management patterns (ARC, manual tuning), caching strategies, and techniques for minimizing UI jank;
• Experience with CI/CD workflows for iOS and App Store deployment processes is preferred.

Professional Qualities

We’re looking for a self-directed engineer who thrives with ownership and minimal supervision. You should be curious about new technologies, pragmatic about trade-offs (performance vs. complexity), and comfortable mentoring others. Clear communication, strong debugging discipline, and a mindset for shipping reliable user-facing features are essential.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Core ML, Vision, OpenGL/OpenCV, or other image/ML frameworks;
• Hands-on experience with Metal, graphics programming, GPU programming, and writing shaders;
• Familiarity with Swift concurrency (async/await), Combine, or reactive patterns;
• Track record of shipping complex multimedia apps to the App Store;
• Background in mobile analytics, A/B testing, or instrumentation for performance/usage metrics;
• Previous experience working on performance-sensitive consumer apps at scale.

Our Environment

We operate like a small, focused engineering team delivering a consumer photo product. The culture values technical excellence, thoughtful problem solving, and sustainable engineering practices. You’ll join a friendly team that gives engineers autonomy and ownership while expecting clear, pragmatic technical choices.

Why This Role Is Unique

This is a chance to own and elevate the core technical experience of a photo app — from the shader code and Metal pipelines to cross-device performance and architectural standards. Unlike roles that focus on a single layer, you’ll work across the stack of mobile rendering, app infrastructure, and production delivery, seeing the direct impact of your work on user experience and product growth.

Why work at FaceApp?

• Above market wages, formal employment and white wages;
• Cozy office with sea view;
• Health insurance;
• Compensation of costs for professional literature;
• Sports compensation;
• Compensation for the purchase of a mobile phone (once a year, 50% of the cost is compensated);
• Flexible start of the working day;
• Relocation to Cyprus (Limassol) is required for this role;
• Comfortable working conditions, a positive atmosphere, an open, informal corporate culture, and a friendly team;
• An excellent opportunity, together with a professional team, to solve interesting and complex problems, to create a product that is used by millions of people.