Senior Software Engineer

Page Facing Up Summary

  • React Native (5+ years experience with several large-scale apps with exceptional UX)
  • Next.js
  • Node.js
  • Typescript
  • GraphQL / SQL
  • Interest in nature and conservation
  • Some design flair / product thinking helpful
  • Mostly remote - periodic meetings in London
  • Salary: DOE
  • Generous share options scheme


Owl About Birda

Birda is a game-changing app that's making birdwatching cooler than ever before. Imagine Pokémon Go but with real birds and real adventures. In just a few years we've grown to hundreds of thousands of users across 177 countries and have been acclaimed ‘App of the Day’ by Apple in 148 countries.

 Birda  is more than just an app; it's a thriving community where enthusiasts gather, regardless of their birdwatching experience, to discover, learn, and engage in friendly competition. If you've witnessed the transformative impact of platforms like Strava in sports, Alltrails in hiking, and Fishbrain in fishing, you'll understand the vast potential Birda has in filling a similar niche within the birdwatching domain.

The team is currently our founders JohnMan Office Worker(CEO and spreadsheet menace) and Natalie Princess (design queen). Our tech team is made up of Dave Man Singer (Tech Lead & acting CTO), Anjum Man Juggling (Principal Engineer) and engineers Tim Person Beard & Aleks Dancer, as well as Silvia Woman Tipping Hand our UX/UI whizz, and Jack Man Running our Product Manager. We also have Francisco Man Surfing our Senior Marketing Manager, and Sarah Woman Superhero who looks after our community. We are currently in the process of hiring a Head of Product too.


Telescope What we are looking for

We're looking for a full-stack engineer to help us build more features and accelerate development across the mobile app, web app and server platform. We need someone with extensive React Native expertise, preferably with large-scale apps with exceptional UX. Mobile experience is essential, you will be used to dealing with App Store weirdness and handling cross-platform issues with native APIs. You will also be very familiar with React Native's idiosyncrasies and can mentor other engineers on best practices.

You'll be working closely with our head of UX/UI. It's important that you have an eye for design and interactivity, with attention to detail and knowledge of mobile UX paradigms. You'll be able to contribute all the little animations and other touches that make for a high-quality experience as well as to advise on performance optimisation. You should have a portfolio of work that we can talk through.

You are good at your job, passionate about building things, and care about the quality of your work. You know that great code is clean, expressive and inherently readable, and comprehensive automated tests are essential.

As much as all of that stuff is true, it's equally true that you'll need an interest in conservation and nature. You don't need to be a full-on Bird Nerd, but outside should be your happy place.

Mobile Phone Tech stack

You don't need to know all of these exact things; we value your skills over specific experience. For example, if most of your cloud experience is with AWS, that's fine.

Common

  • Typescript
  • Functional programming style
  • Jest
  • Docker
  • CircleCI

Mobile

  • React Native
  • Expo / EAS
  • Apollo GraphQL Client
  • Sqlite
  • Tailwind
  • Detox

Web

  • React
  • Next.JS
  • Cypress

Server

  • Node
  • Apollo GraphQL Server
  • PostgreSQL + PostGIS
  • Redis
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • PubSub
  • Cloud Run
  • Cloud Functions
  • Cloud Vision
  • Vertex AI
  • BigQuery
  • Workflows
  • and others


Dollar Banknote / Green Heart What we give in return

Your life is too precious to spend it making something that doesn't matter. Many of the greatest challenges that all humans will face both now and in the future will involve managing protecting the environment and climate change. Encouraging an appreciation of the natural world is a small but vital part of rising to these challenges. We believe that getting people excited about the plants and animals that inhabit our planet will lead to people making different decisions about how they lead their lives and how they care about the environment.

Of course, you can't pay your rent / mortgage / deliveroo habit on good feelings so we'll be paying a respectable salary. We won't be able to compete with banks or large tech companies though, so our mission will need to matter to you.

We have an employee-friendly (gradual vesting, long exercise period) stock options grant. If you stick with us, you'll share in any success we achieve.

There is the usual holiday allowance - plus your birthday too Birthday Cake - as well as access to company equipment - the usual laptop etc but also SLR cameras, long lenses and binoculars!

🏞 Remote working

We work remotely as we're spread all over the UK. It doesn't matter too much where you are as long as you're happy working there, the WiFi is reliable and it's quiet enough for video calls. We use collaboration tools like Slack, Google Meet, Figma and VS Code Live Share.

Flexible working - if you need to bail early to make the school run, that's not a problem. Work when you are productive.

While we like saving time, money and our carbon footprint by travelling as little as possible, we do meet periodically in London for collaborative work days, and to hang out (we're slowly working our way around all of the bars and restaurants in King's Cross!)

👩🏽‍💼 Interview Process

There are a few stages but we'll move as quickly as you can. Nobody likes an interview process that takes months.

👋🏻 Step 1 - Say hi to Birda

Approx. 30 minute video call
Introduction and informal chat with Dave. Find out if you think it's worth going through the hassle of the rest of the process...

House Step 2 - Code Exercise

Approx. 1 hour video call
Yes, we know you don't like these, and we are sorry. It's possible that experienced candidates with open-source portfolios might skip this bit. If not, we try to make it as painless as possible. You'll be on a video call with an engineer, both using VS Code Live Share, and you'll be shown a pure Javascript exercise (i.e. no frameworks or libraries). You'll be mostly left to your own devices, with the engineer just popping in occasionally to see how you're getting on. Feel free to use Google but we do ask that you don't use any LLMs like ChatGPT or Copilot. It should take an hour or so - we aren't expecting a full solution; it's more interesting to see how you tackle a problem.

Speech Balloon Step 3 - Technical Interview

Approx. 1 hour video call
This is the more technical part, with Dave and Anjum. We'll do all the usual interview stuff like talking through your experience / portfolio, what makes you tick etc. We'll try and find a topic you know a lot about and do a deep dive.
There will be no silly algo challenges or other hazing exercises.

Nerd Face Step 4 - In-person Interview

In-person in London
First you'll meet founders John & Nat to learn about the company's vision, product, and business strategy, and to ask any questions you have.
Then you'll meet Dave and Anjum in person! Before the interview day, you'll be sent some designs for a new feature. We'll discuss the designs and talk about how we could go about implementing them, what architectures, design patterns or testing methods we could use.
Finally you'll meet Silvia our head of UX/UI for coffee (or caffeine-free equivalent). This is not part of the interview but gives you the chance to find out more about what it's like working for Birda and to ask questions outside of the interview environment.

Thinking Face Step 4.5 - Ask us anything

This is a follow-up call for you to ask us anything, any concerns or issues you want to be clarified - now's the time. It's a big decision for everyone and we want to take every opportunity to ensure it's the right one for everybody.