iOS Tech Lead - Real-Time Collaboration

At Goodnotes, we believe that every individual holds untapped potential waiting to be unleashed. By reimagining the way we interact with information, we’re merging human creativity with the breakthrough capabilities of AI. Our renewed vision and mission drive us to create the best medium for human and AI collaboration, empowering users to explore new dimensions of productivity, creativity, and learning. Join us on this journey as we transform digital note-taking into an inspiring and innovative experience.

Our Values:

Dream big - Be visionary, strategic, and open to innovation

Build great things - Work in service of our users, always improving and pushing higher

Operate as an owner - Propel company success and impact with an entrepreneurial mindset

Win like a sports team - Be trusting and collaborative while empowering others

Learn and grow fast - Never stop learning and iterate fast

Share our passion - Share ideas and practice enthusiasm and joy

Be user obsessed - Empathetic, inquisitive, practical

About the team:

Goodnotes started as a best-in-class note‑taking app with sync across devices, but collaboration was not real time. The Real‑Time Collaboration team is transforming Goodnotes into a multiplayer, always‑on workspace used by tens of millions of people.

You will join a distributed team across Europe and Asia building the foundations of real‑time collaboration for Goodnotes. Our core mission is to deliver sub‑second collaboration latency at scale for tens of millions of users.

We work closely with product, design, and other client teams to deliver low‑latency, reliable, and delightful collaboration experiences that feel as smooth as writing on paper while multiple people are editing at once. The work you do will be core to how individuals, classrooms, and organisations collaborate in Goodnotes, and it is also a key foundation for our B2B business.

We value a product-minded engineering culture, thoughtful technical design, and a strong focus on user experience and reliability.

About the role:

We are hiring for an iOS Tech Lead for Real‑Time Collaboration.

This is an iOS role, but as a Tech Lead you will think and design end‑to‑end solutions for real time collaboration: you will own the client‑side architecture and user experience, while partnering with backend engineers who own backend design. You are expected to drive and coordinate the overall technical design so that all parts of the system come together into a coherent, best‑in‑class user experience.

This is the role for you if you're excited to work on the things listed below:

• Design and build real‑time collaboration features on iOS and iPadOS that feel seamless for tens of millions of users.
• Push collaboration latency towards sub‑second experiences, while ensuring the system scales reliably to tens of millions of users.
• Own complex client‑side systems end‑to‑end, from technical design and prototyping to shipping and iteration.
• Evolve offline‑first sync flows so that collaboration remains robust even with poor connectivity.
• Collaborate closely with backend and other client teams (Web, Windows, Mac, Android) on APIs, data models, and performance.
• Raise the quality bar for user experience, performance, and reliability through thoughtful engineering practices, instrumentation, and experimentation.

As a Tech Lead, you will also:

• Define and drive the technical roadmap for real‑time collaboration in partnership with product and design.
• Lead the design of complex client architectures, including state management and real‑time data flows.
• Drive end‑to‑end solution design across client and backend owners, ensuring we make the right trade‑offs for user experience, latency, and reliability.
• Break down ambiguous, cross‑team problems into clear technical plans and milestones.
• Coordinate execution across multiple engineers and squads, proactively unblocking others.
• Give clear technical direction and feedback through design reviews, code reviews, and mentoring.
• Champion best practices for performance, reliability, and observability on the client.

The skills you will need to be successful in the above:

• Strong experience in iOS development using Swift.
• Proven track record delivering complex, user‑facing features at scale in production mobile apps.
• Experience acting as a tech lead or senior engineer, owning projects from inception to launch and iteration.
• A strong product mindset with a focus on user experience, interaction design, and polish.
• Ability to design and reason about complex client architectures, state management, and data flows.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with cross‑functional partners across time zones.
• Solid understanding of fundamental computer science concepts, such as data structures, concurrency, and distributed systems basics.
• Robust software engineering practices, including testing, automation, code review, and documentation.

Bonus points for:

• Experience working on real‑time collaborative products (for example, Google Docs, Figma, Notion, Slack, or similar).
• Knowledge of offline‑first systems and conflict‑resolution techniques such as CRDTs or Operational Transform.
• Familiarity with WebSocket or other real‑time communication protocols from the client perspective.
• Experience working on multi‑platform or cross‑device experiences.

Even if you don't meet all the criteria listed above, we would still love to hear from you! Goodnotes places a lot of value on learning and development and will support your growth if needed.

The interview process:

• An introductory call with someone from our talent acquisition team. They want to hear more about your background, what you are looking for, and why you'd like to join Goodnotes.
• A short online coding skills test.
• A live coding / pairing session with one of our iOS engineers focused on data structures, algorithms, and practical iOS problems.
• A technical interview (remote or onsite in one of our locations: London, Singapore, Hong Kong) focused on system design, iOS architecture, and asynchronous programming.
• An AI literacy interview, discussing how you think about and use AI in your work.
• A call with your hiring manager, who will work with you on your growth and support you throughout your time at Goodnotes.
• A behavioural interview panel focused on Goodnotes values.

What’s in it for you:

• Meaningful equity in a profitable tech startup
• Budget for things like noise-cancelling headphones, setting up your home office, personal development, professional training, and health & wellness
• Sponsored visits to our Hong Kong or London office every 2 years
• Company-wide annual offsite
• Flexible working hours and location
• Medical insurance for you and your dependents

Note: Employment is contingent upon successful completion of background checks, including verification of employment, education, and criminal records.