iNaturalist seeks a Senior React Native Engineer to join our mobile engineering team and contribute to the continued development of our cross-platform mobile applications.

As a senior member of our mobile engineering team, you'll shape how millions of users around the world connect with nature and contribute to biodiversity science. Your work will directly influence how people identify species, share observations, and learn about the natural world through technology.

About iNaturalist

iNaturalist is the leading biodiversity platform on the planet where millions of community scientists, supported by a vast network of expert naturalists, crowdsource one of the world's largest biodiversity databases. With 4 million monthly active users and 400 thousand monthly active contributors, each month iNaturalist generates over 6 million observations of over 100 thousand distinct species. The iNaturalist database is the backbone of conservation science, supports a global network of stewards, and motivates a movement of nature advocates. Launched in 2008 and operating as a nonprofit committed to open data, iNaturalist is at the forefront of combining crowdsourcing and AI models to further our mission. 

iNaturalist's vision is a world where everyone can understand and sustain biodiversity through the practice of observing wild organisms and sharing information about them. We are an independent 501(c)3 non-profit. 

Responsibilities

Mobile Engineering Excellence

• Build and maintain high-quality features for iNaturalist's React Native mobile applications.

• Write clean, performant, and well-tested code that delights users and supports our mission.

• Collaborate with web, backend, and ML teams to integrate new functionality seamlessly.

• Ensure performance, accessibility, and usability standards are met in your contributions.

• Balance technical debt reduction with new feature development in your work.

• Contribute to mobile architecture decisions and our unified React Native codebase.

• Support quality engineering through code reviews, automated testing, and performance optimization.

• Mentor junior developers and collaborate effectively with the broader mobile team.

Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent experience

• 6-8 years of software engineering experience

• React Native expertise and strong native skills (Objective-C/Swift or Kotlin/Java)

• Proven record shipping offline-first apps with local persistence & conflict resolution

• Experience with performance tuning, profiling, and instrumentation on mobile

• The ideal candidate will have experience building and maintaining software applications from conception to completion on both iOS and Android

• Fluent in English, both written and verbal

• Collaborative Spirit: Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across departments and with diverse stakeholders.

• Passion for Nature: A strong commitment to nature and technology as well as an interest in science and conservation.

Why Join Us?

• Impact: Play a pivotal role in a mission-driven organization dedicated to biodiversity conservation and community engagement.

• Innovation: Working with a team of developers building cutting-edge technology that empowers millions of people to make a positive impact on nature.

• Growth: Be part of a growing organization with opportunities for personal and professional development.

If you are passionate about biodiversity, technology, and working with other talented engineers to achieve meaningful impact, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity.

Compensation and Benefits

Why it’s Great to Work at iNaturalist 

 A mission that matters. 

With species going extinct daily, the need to protect and document biodiversity has never been more essential. iNaturalist has become the go-to data source to measure biodiversity conservation and protection. 

A great team.

Smart, hard-working nature lovers make up our small team. We live in countries all over the world but come together each day to further our mission. For this position, to facilitate collaboration across time zones, we require that you be a resident of and eligible to work in the lower 48 states (i.e., not Alaska or Hawaii). 

Flexible work. 

We are a virtual team, and most of this position’s work can be performed from home or wherever you are comfortable. You’ll even get some funds to set up your office and a monthly stipend to defray some of the costs. Some travel to meetings and events will  be required. 

Competitive pay.

The salary for this full-time position is $149,764 per year, non-negotiable. 

Great benefits.

We offer a pretty awesome benefits package, including medical, dental, vision and life insurance, plus an employer-funded health reimbursement account and employee-funded flexible spending accounts. There is a 401k plan with a 5% match. This position is eligible for unlimited personal time off, and unlike some tech companies, we really mean it – everyone is expected to take a minimum of three weeks a year off. Eligible new parents get up to 12 weeks of paid leave and an additional 18 of unpaid. 

Application process

Instead of a cover letter, we will ask you to answer two questions that will be reviewed (by real people, not AI) and assessed separately from each other, your resume, and your name. The hiring team will review your answers and resume in a batch of answers and resumes from other candidates in randomized orders. Randomization and anonymization of each element in the initial review process minimizes bias.

Applied asks for your demographic information, but we never see it in association with you—only summarized in aggregate. We use it to assess the overall demographics of the candidate pool.

After initial review of applications on a rolling basis, advancing candidates will be asked to answer a few more questions.

Application Period:

We anticipate closing this posting on July 25th, but reserve the right to close it earlier if we've reached 500 applications. In the event that we decide to close it early, anyone who has started an application but not yet submitted it will be notified via email and will then have 48 hours to finish.

Process Summary:

• Application (July)

• Written follow up (August)

• Interviews (August)

• Offer (Late August)

• Ideal start date: September 1