Software Engineer — Mobile & Backend

## About the role OtterHalf is a dating app for South Asian singles in the U.S. and Canada. The product is live on iOS and Android and is focused on prompt-led profiles, transparent incoming likes, and a cleaner alternative to swipe-heavy dating apps. We are looking for a software engineer to help improve the mobile app, backend, product quality, and launch-readiness as the app grows from an early live product into a more polished consumer experience. This is a hands-on engineering role. You will work directly with the founder on product features, reliability, UX polish, and release quality. ## What you'll work on You will help build and improve features across the mobile app and backend, including: - Mobile app features for iOS and Android - Onboarding, profile editing, discovery, likes, matches, chat, referrals, and premium flows - Backend APIs and product logic - Database schema, data consistency, and query performance - Authentication, media upload, notifications, and account flows - Subscription and purchase-related user experiences - Messaging, real-time updates, and reliability improvements - App Store and Play Store release-readiness fixes - Crash fixes, error states, loading states, and product polish - Internal tooling or lightweight operational workflows when needed ## Required qualifications Please apply only if you meet most of these requirements: - 3+ years of professional software engineering experience - Strong experience building production mobile apps - Strong JavaScript or TypeScript experience - Experience building and consuming backend APIs - Comfortable working with relational databases - Ability to debug issues across mobile, backend, and production environments - Experience with Git, code reviews, and structured development workflows - Ability to take a product requirement and turn it into a working implementation - Strong attention to edge cases, user experience, and product quality - Comfortable working in an early-stage environment with high ownership and limited process ## Strong pluses These are not required, but they are highly relevant: - Experience shipping consumer mobile apps - Experience with social, dating, marketplace, community, or messaging products - Experience with in-app purchases, subscriptions, or app monetization - Experience with app store release processes - Experience with push notifications or real-time product features - Experience improving app reliability, crash-free rates, and performance - Experience working directly with founders or product leads - Familiarity with U.S./Canada consumer app markets ## What success looks like In the first 30–60 days, a strong candidate should be able to: - Understand the existing mobile and backend architecture - Ship small-to-medium product improvements independently - Fix bugs without introducing regressions - Improve quality in areas like onboarding, discovery, likes, chat, or subscriptions - Communicate tradeoffs clearly - Avoid unnecessary over-engineering - Help make the app feel more stable, polished, and production-ready ## What we are not looking for This role is probably not a fit if you only want narrowly assigned tickets, need a large engineering team around you, or prefer work with no product involvement. OtterHalf is still early, so the right person should be comfortable moving between mobile features, backend logic, debugging, and product details. ## About the company OtterHalf is a dating app for South Asian singles in the U.S. and Canada. The product is live on iOS and Android and is focused on prompt-led profiles, transparent incoming likes, and a cleaner alternative to swipe-heavy dating apps.