Founding iOS Engineer (m/f/d)

<h2>About us</h2><p>Most labs still count cells under a microscope by hand. It's slow, repetitive, and error-prone. We're replacing that manual work with software. By combining a standard microscope with a smartphone, we run computer vision models that locate, track, and measure cells automatically in real time. We're starting with semen analysis and expanding to other routine microscopic samples. We're a small, well-funded team in Berlin, founded in 2026. Our goal is to make automated, reliable diagnostic analysis accessible on any phone connected to a microscope.</p><h2>The role</h2><p>We're looking for an iOS engineer who loves the camera. Our app turns an iPhone on a microscope into a lab instrument, and the hard problems live on the device: holding focus on a moving sample, running computer vision in real time, and capturing a recording precise enough for a clinical result. On top of that, the app has to be simple enough for a technician in a busy lab. You'll own it end to end, together with the founders.</p><h2>What you'll do</h2><ul><li><p>Own the app end to end, from architecture to release.</p></li><li><p>Push the iPhone camera and on-device models to their limits, so every recording is good enough to analyse.</p></li><li><p>Design the capture workflow with lab staff, so technicians get it right the first time.</p></li><li><p>Spend time in the lab, measure what works, and decide what to build next.</p></li></ul><h2>What you bring</h2><ul><li><p>Camera depth. You've built on the iOS camera stack, not just used it: AVFoundation with manual focus, exposure and white balance, and real-time frame processing. You know where the hardware's limits are.</p></li><li><p>On-device ML. You've run models on the phone and made them fast: Core ML and Vision, quantisation, the Neural Engine, profiling with Instruments.</p></li><li><p>Apps you've owned. You've shipped iOS apps in Swift and SwiftUI and owned them in production. You design an architecture one engineer can carry, and you can explain the trade-offs behind it.</p></li><li><p>Product and UX sense. You turn a messy real-world workflow into something simple, and you test it with the people who use it.</p></li><li><p>Built for real conditions. Offline-first, background uploads, interruptions, data protection. The app works when the network doesn't.</p></li><li><p>Beyond the app. iOS is your home, but when the app needs it, you read the backend and change an API yourself.</p></li><li><p>Correctness. You validate with numbers, not by eye. Tests are part of the feature. You reproduce bugs first and fix the cause, not the symptom.</p></li><li><p>AI-native engineering. Coding agents are part of your daily work. You give them good context, split work into reviewable steps, and stand behind every line you ship.</p></li><li><p>Ownership. You help shape the roadmap, push back on weak ideas, set your own priorities and raise problems early. Nobody has to chase you.</p></li><li><p>Range. You've worked across several companies, stacks or environments. How you work counts far more than how many years you've done it.</p></li></ul><h2>Nice to have</h2><ul><li><p>Optics or microscopy imaging.</p></li><li><p>Apps for professional users: lab, field, clinical or enterprise.</p></li><li><p>Regulated environments with audits: medical devices, health, finance.</p></li></ul><h2>What we offer</h2><ul><li><p>Ownership from day one. As a founding engineer,