Lead Mobile Engineer, React Native
Location : Madrid (Hybrid) · Full-time · Competitive compensation + equity
Shape the Future of Marine Navigation
Orca is reinventing how people navigate the sea—building the next-generation navigation platform for recreational boating. Our mobile-first experience already guides hundreds of thousands of boaters with features like real-time routing, weather overlays, and offline navigation.
We’re looking for a Lead Mobile Engineer [React Native] to drive and scale the development of the Orca App. This is a hybrid role that blends hands-on engineering with technical and team leadership. Your success will come from architecting long-term solutions that endure, raising the bar for the team, and shaping an engineering culture centered on delivering high customer value .
What You’ll Do
Lead the mobile App team— own the app architecture, drive technical decisions, and ensure high-quality delivery .
Mentor, support, and help grow a small team of talented React Native engineers.
Balance hands-on contributions with coaching and technical guidance.
Partner closely with Product, Design, and Backend to shape roadmap and execution.
Build robust, performant, and reliable features like sail routing, weather layers, real-time navigation, and offline maps .
Champion best practices in code quality, testing, performance, and release management.
Contribute to hiring and onboarding as we scale the engineering team.
What You Bring
Technical Skills
7+ years of mobile development, including 5+ years building production React Native apps.
Strong foundation in computer science principles and software architecture design.
Expert-level knowledge of TypeScript, React, and modern front-end patterns.
Hands-on experience upgrading React Native versions and managing related code migrations.
Strong capability in profiling and optimization for performance and battery usage.
Experience with app instrumentation for monitoring, analytics, and observability .
Proficiency with native development in Java / Kotlin and Objective-C / Swift, including integration of native modules and working knowledge of TurboModules / JSI .
Experience implementing and maintaining CI / CD pipelines for mobile applications.
Leadership & Execution
Proven experience leading small engineering teams or technical projects.
Strong systems thinker who balances short-term velocity with long-term maintainability.
Clear communicator who can align teams, clarify tradeoffs, and push through ambiguity.
Passion for product and UX—thinks like a customer and codes like an owner.
Why Join Orca?
High ownership : Your work will directly impact thousands of users at sea.
We’re a small, fast-moving team with big ambitions and no unnecessary layers.
Real-world impact : This isn’t a typical consumer app—it's a mission-critical tool used in high-pressure, real-world scenarios.
Great incentives : Competitive salary + equity in a well-funded, high-growth company.
Global ambition : Join us early as we scale Orca to become the reference platform for boating worldwide—read more on our blog (https://getorca.com/blog).
Check out some features we’ve shipped:
Navigation instruments - https://getorca.com/blog/navigation_instruments/
Weather for boaters - https://getorca.com/blog/weather-boating-new-feature-orca/
Guard Mode - https://getorca.com/blog/introducing-guard-mode/
Upgraded Logbook - https://getorca.com/blog/logbook-upgrade/
Apply Now
Send your CV and links to your work (GitHub, portfolio, apps) to careers@getorca.com.
Want to jump the queue? Try our coding challenge (https://github.com/orca-io/orca-challenges/tree/master/challenge-ais-viewer)—we review submissions fast.