Staff iOS Architect

Faire; Kitchener; Hybrid; CAD 184,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online marketplace in Kitchener is looking for a Staff iOS Architect to lead projects and improve the iOS architecture. You’ll collaborate with mobile engineers to elevate app performance, while having a significant impact on business outcomes. Ideal candidates have over 6 years of iOS experience and a strong track record with mobile apps. This role offers a competitive salary and hybrid work model.

Benefits

Equity options

Health benefits

Flexible remote work

Qualifications

• 6+ years of iOS experience with multiple apps in the App Store.
• Experience maintaining a mobile app at scale.
• Strong problem-solving and architectural abilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead critical projects within the Discovery pillar.
• Collaborate with backend and frontend/mobile developers.
• Coach and mentor mobile engineers.

Skills

iOS development

Architectural design

Problem-solving

Tools

Swift

SwiftUI

UIKit

Job description

About Faire

Faire is an online wholesale marketplace built on the belief that the future is local — independent retailers around the globe are doing more revenue than Walmart and Amazon combined, but individually, they are small compared to these massive entities. At Faire, we're using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect this thriving community of entrepreneurs across the globe. Picture your favorite boutique in town — we help them discover the best products from around the world to sell in their stores. With the right tools and insights, we believe that we can level the playing field so that small businesses everywhere can compete with these big box and e-commerce giants.

By supporting the growth of independent businesses, Faire is driving positive economic impact in local communities, globally. We’re looking for smart, resourceful and passionate people to join us as we power the shop local movement. If you believe in community, come join ours.

About this role

Our mobile apps are crucial to Faire's vision: Empowering entrepreneurs to chase their dreams. We believe in empowering retailers to run their business from their pocket through a world-class mobile app. We are passionate about stunning design, exceptional user experience, and robust engineering practices, ensuring our software is secure, tested, easy to maintain, responsive, and performant. We embrace an iterative approach, building minimum viable products, deploying to production weekly, A/B testing customer-facing changes, and continually refining based on data.

We are seeking a Staff iOS Architect to join our Discovery pillar. This engineer will be aligned with the pillar's mission, working on some of our most important projects. We help retailers find exactly what they're looking for on Faire, evaluate it as a product in their stores, and efficiently trial or purchase the product.

This role will also help set the technical vision for our iOS and improve the overall iOS architecture as a valued member of our staff engineering team in the larger iOS team at Faire.

The Discovery pillar drives our market growth by tuning Faire for each retailer, showcasing products that inspire business growth, helping them understand what will sell in their segment, and making it easy for them to expand into brands they may not have otherwise found. Discovery owns a significant amount of Faire’s revenue and the ability of our engineers to have an impact on Faire’s business is high.

As a Staff iOS Architect, you’ll collaborate with us to:

• Lead critical projects within the Discovery pillar, contributing directly to the core business objective of helping retailers find what they're looking for.
• Collaborate with a talented team of backend and frontend/mobile developers to deliver a compelling product.
• Work with the broader mobile development team at Faire to solidify and grow our mobile architecture, establishing best practices and driving innovation.
• Coach and mentor mobile engineers in a fast-paced environment, fostering a culture of technical excellence.
• Improve the quality of our mobile apps through comprehensive testing strategies and a focus on long-term architectural health.
• Improve the iOS architecture, addressing technical debt and implementing forward-thinking solutions.

We're excited about you because you have:

• 6+ years of iOS experience, having worked on multiple apps shipped to the App Store, with a strong portfolio demonstrating architectural contributions.
• Experience shipping and maintaining a mobile app over an extended period of time, with a proven track record of working with mobile apps at scale or having helped apps scale to millions of users.
• A passion for programming alongside strong problem-solving and architectural abilities, with a focus on elegant and scalable solutions.
• A love for technology, and an insatiable curiosity for new tools to solve real problems, always seeking to innovate and improve.
• Previous experience on a platform team and a passion for scaling systems for a growing organization and user base, with a deep understanding of mobile infrastructure.
• A high bar for engineering excellence and a commitment to delivering high-quality, performant, and maintainable code.
• Curiosity to drive engineering impact outside of the iOS tech stack, demonstrating a holistic understanding of software systems.

Technologies we use and teach

• Swift
• SwiftUI, UIKit
• Swift Concurrency
• Protocol Buffers
• Bazel

Salary range

Canada: the pay range for this role is $184,000 - $253,000 per year.

This role will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Actual base pay will be determined based on permissible factors such as transferable skills, work experience, market demands, and primary work location. The base pay range provided is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

Hybrid Faire employees currently go into the office 2 days per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Effective starting in January 2026, employees will be expected to go into the office on a third flex day of their choosing (Monday, Wednesday, or Friday). Additionally, hybrid in-office roles will have the flexibility to work remotely up to 4 weeks per year. Specific Workplace and Information Technology positions may require onsite attendance 5 days per week as will be indicated in the job posting.
Applications for this position will be accepted for a minimum of 30 days from the posting date.

Why you’ll love working at Faire

• We are entrepreneurs: Faire is being built for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. We believe entrepreneurship is a calling and our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to chase their dreams. Every member of our team is taking part in the founding process.
• We are using technology and data to level the playing field: We are leveraging the power of product innovation and machine learning to connect brands and boutiques from all over the world, building a growing community of more than 350,000 small business owners.
• We build products our customers love: Everything we do is ultimately in the service of helping our customers grow their business because our goal is to grow the pie - not steal a piece from it. Running a small business is hard work, but using Faire makes it easy.
• We are curious and resourceful: Inquisitive by default, we explore every possibility, test every assumption, and develop creative solutions to the challenges at hand. We lead with curiosity and data in our decision making, and reason from a first principles mentality.

Faire was founded in 2017 by a team of early product and engineering leads from Square. We’re backed by some of the top investors in retail and tech including: Y Combinator, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Forerunner Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, and DST Global. We have headquarters in San Francisco and Kitchener‑Waterloo, and a global employee presence across offices in Toronto, London, and New York. To learn more about Faire and our customers, you can read more on our blog.

Faire provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Faire is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Accommodations are available throughout the recruitment process and applicants with a disability may request to be accommodated throughout the recruitment process. We will work with all applicants to accommodate their individual accessibility needs. To request reasonable accommodation, please fill out our Accommodation Request Form (https://bit.ly/faire-form)

Privacy

For information about the type of personal data Faire collects from applicants, as well as your choices regarding the data collected about you, please visit Faire’s Privacy Notice (https://www.faire.com/privacy)