Tech Lead, Mobile Engineer

Tech Lead, Mobile Engineer

Photobucket

Help Build the Next Generation of Digital Connection

Photobucket pioneered digital photo hosting. Founded in 2003, the platform now serves more than 70 million users and stores over 13 billion photos and videos. With strong growth and profitable operations, Photobucket has built a durable platform and strong financial foundation.

Now we are building what comes next.

The next evolution of Photobucket is live — a platform designed to redefine how people connect through shared moments.

We are creating private digital spaces where real relationships, shared experiences, and authentic communities thrive.

And we're just getting started.

We are looking for a product-minded Tech Lead who will own the technical direction of our mobile applications — leading a team, shipping high-impact customer-facing features, and setting the standard for mobile engineering at Photobucket.

Our Mission: Empower people to connect through shared moments — safely, simply, and intentionally.

What Makes Photobucket Different

Photobucket is redefining digital connection as the leading photo and video sharing and collaboration platform by creating private spaces where real-world relationships and authentic communities thrive.

Our platform is built on four principles:

• Private by Design → Safe, authentic sharing — your people, your moments, your rules.
• Human at Heart → Designed like a friend — friendly, approachable, and clutter-free.
• Connection with Purpose → Communities built around shared passions, experiences, and relationships.
• Evolving Together → A living platform that grows stronger with every shared moment.

The Opportunity

This role is the technical heartbeat of our mobile application team.

You will own the full delivery path — from GraphQL schema to App Store submission — leading the team that builds the primary surface through which millions of users experience Photobucket. Our mobile applications are written in React Native with custom native modules, backed by GraphQL APIs, with complementary web experiences that extend the product.

You will be a hands-on technical leader. You will leverage AI to write code for the most complex and critical components, guide architectural decisions for our mobile platform, and ensure your team delivers predictably and at a high quality bar. You will partner closely with Product, UX, and peer Tech Leads to shape what we build and how we build it.

You will also help define how your team works with AI. Photobucket is an AI-forward engineering organization, and we expect our Tech Leads to embrace AI tooling as a force multiplier — for themselves and for their teams.

This role is designed for someone who leads by building, who sees the mobile experience as the product (not just a surface), and who takes personal ownership of the quality and craft that users hold in their hands.

What You'll Own

Mobile Technical Strategy

• Serve as the technical authority for Photobucket's mobile applications
• Guide architectural decisions for React Native, native module integration, and the mobile build/release pipeline
• Drive performance optimization, app stability, and mobile-specific concerns — offline behavior, deep linking, push notifications, device fragmentation
• Lead by example through hands-on coding on complex or critical components

Team Leadership and Development

• Coach team members on technical skills and career growth
• Hold the team accountable through clear expectations and constructive feedback
• Foster a culture where quality is a shared responsibility
• Support hiring decisions and onboard new team members effectively

Delivery and Execution

• Drive on-time delivery while maintaining quality standards
• Own the App Store and Google Play release process — review cycles, staged rollouts, and hotfix strategies
• Break down complex projects into manageable milestones with data-driven estimates
• Proactively communicate risks, blockers, and timeline changes to stakeholders
• Keep the team focused on sprint commitments — finishing work before opening new work

Operational Excellence

• Monitor app health, crash rates, and performance metrics
• Lead incident response and ensure thorough post-mortems with actionable follow-through
• Identify and address technical debt with clear remediation plans
• Continuously refine team workflows and invest in developer experience

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Managers on roadmap planning and sprint priorities
• Work closely with UX and the design system to ensure consistency between design intent and shipped product
• Coordinate with peer Tech Leads on dependencies, integrations, and architectural consistency
• Share learnings and best practices across the engineering organization

What Success Looks Like

Within your first year you will help:

• Deliver meaningful customer-facing features that delight our customers and grow our userbase
• Build cross-functional trust where Product and Design partners have high confidence in engineering estimates and delivery
• Drive measurable improvement in DORA metrics: deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and mean time to recovery
• Improve mobile app stability, performance, and release cadence
• Grow the engineers around you — measurable skill development and increasing ownership
• Put repeatable frameworks in place for estimation, architecture review, and incident response

Who We're Looking For

You are a mobile engineer who leads, not a manager who used to code.

You are energized by the craft of building great mobile experiences. You set the standard through your own work, and you take personal responsibility for the quality and velocity of what your team ships.

Experience

• 10+ years mobile app development experience
• 3+ years in a Tech Lead role, leading a team through delivery while remaining hands-on
• Deep production experience with React Native — not just feature work, but performance optimization, native module bridging, and build/release pipeline ownership
• Strong React and GraphQL skills for the web surfaces that complement the mobile experience
• Proven track record shipping consumer-facing mobile applications at scale
• Experience navigating App Store and Google Play release processes, including review cycles, staged rollouts, and hotfix strategies

Capabilities

• Strong mobile architectural thinking — you can translate product requirements into sound technical designs that account for the realities of mobile platforms
• Understanding of mobile-specific concerns: offline behavior, deep linking, push notifications, device fragmentation
• Data-driven approach to estimation, delivery, and continuous improvement
• Fluency with AI tooling and a mindset of leveraging it as a force multiplier

Mindset

• Product engineer mentality — you care about customer problems and business impact, not just the code
• Bias for action — you identify and resolve issues without waiting to be told
• High standards — you insist on quality and hold your team to the same bar
• Ownership — you treat your team's outcomes as your outcomes

Nice to Have

• SwiftUI or Kotlin experience for native module development
• Experience with design system implementation on the code side
• Background in consumer photo, social, or media products

Location

Photobucket operates with a distributed workforce with a hub in Boulder, Colorado.

This role is fully remote, with an option to work out of our Boulder, CO office. We work on Mountain Time work hours.

Compensation

• Salary range: $170,000 – $225,000 + bonus
• Health, Dental, Vision Benefits: covering employee/spouse/family premiums 100%
• Unlimited PTO
• 401(k) with 100% match up to 5%
• Other health and wellness reimbursements

Why Join Photobucket

We believe the internet needs healthier spaces for connection.

Photobucket is built to bring people together around shared experiences — without the noise, pressure, and algorithms that dominate traditional social media.

We are building something ambitious.

And we are looking for people who want to help make it real.

If you're excited about leading the team that builds the mobile experience for how people connect through shared moments, we'd love to hear from you.

Photobucket is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.