Lead Mobile Engineer

Quantum Base•Lancaster, CA

15h•Hybrid

About The Position

Mobile is the front door to the Q-ID. Every authentication, whether it’s a customs officer scanning a tax stamp, a partner embedding Q-ID verification into their own app, or a consumer checking a product is genuine, happens on a smartphone. These authentications happen in variable real-world conditions, on a wide range of devices. We are looking for a hands-on engineering leader to own that surface end-to-end. The Lead Mobile Engineer will be responsible for leading and managing the mobile engineering team, with a tech stack spanning (in order of importance): Native iOS (Swift, SwiftUI, AVFoundation, Core ML, Vision) Native Android (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, CameraX, ML Kit, TensorFlow Lite) Computer vision and on-device ML for Q-ID authentication Mobile SDK design and distribution, for partners embedding Q-ID into their own apps Cross platform integrations like .NET MAUI Integration with our AWS verification APIs. This is a senior leadership position for someone who is still in the code day-to-day. Q-ID authentication is a computer-vision problem running on a consumer device in unpredictable lighting, on substrates ranging from paper tax stamps to gold blister packs. Small mobile improvements (scan speed, false-reject rate, camera handling) have outsized commercial impact and are often the difference between winning and losing a customer. The role is varied and includes: Strategic Leadership Own the technical direction for mobile at Quantum Base. Help define roadmaps that align with the commercial pipeline. Set the bar for scan performance, reliability and device coverage. Build a culture of fast iteration, measured against real scan data, not just unit tests. Encourage the use of modern best practices and AI tooling. Team Management Lead, mentor and grow the mobile engineering team. Recruit and retain strong mobile talent; build a team that is comfortable working alongside physicists, mathematicians and ML specialists. Partner closely with the cloud team, R&D team and the commercial team. Technical Oversight Be hands-on across complex mobile problems — camera pipelines, image preprocessing, on-device inference, SDK packaging, app-store release engineering. Raise the engineering bar on code quality, automated testing (including on-device and real-substrate testing), CI/CD for mobile, crash and performance monitoring. Own the mobile SDK contract with partners. Work with product, design, algorithms and customer implementation to turn scan performance requirements into shippable releases. Represent mobile in customer-facing technical conversations, including with security printers and government programmes where reliability expectations are high.

Requirements

8+ years in mobile software engineering, with at least 3 years leading teams.
Deep, hands-on expertise in both native iOS (Swift) and native Android (Kotlin).
Experience with camera, computer vision and on-device ML on mobile (Core ML / Vision / ML Kit / TensorFlow Lite, or equivalent).
Experience designing and shipping a mobile SDK consumed by third-party developers.
Strong engineering fundamentals (SOLID, TDD, clean architecture) and a pragmatic view of when to apply them.
Solid understanding of Agile and DevOps practices as they apply to mobile (CI/CD, release trains, staged rollouts, crash and performance analytics).
Track record of working with cloud-backed mobile products and integrating with REST APIs on AWS or equivalent.
Excellent communication and leadership skills, and comfort in front of customers.
Expert with modern AI tooling

Nice To Haves

A background in science, especially physics or mathematics.
Background in computer vision, image processing or applied ML.

Responsibilities

Own the technical direction for mobile at Quantum Base.
Help define roadmaps that align with the commercial pipeline.
Set the bar for scan performance, reliability and device coverage.
Build a culture of fast iteration, measured against real scan data, not just unit tests.
Encourage the use of modern best practices and AI tooling.
Lead, mentor and grow the mobile engineering team.
Recruit and retain strong mobile talent; build a team that is comfortable working alongside physicists, mathematicians and ML specialists.
Partner closely with the cloud team, R&D team and the commercial team.
Be hands-on across complex mobile problems — camera pipelines, image preprocessing, on-device inference, SDK packaging, app-store release engineering.
Raise the engineering bar on code quality, automated testing (including on-device and real-substrate testing), CI/CD for mobile, crash and performance monitoring.
Own the mobile SDK contract with partners.
Work with product, design, algorithms and customer implementation to turn scan performance requirements into shippable releases.
Represent mobile in customer-facing technical conversations, including with security printers and government programmes where reliability expectations are high.