Mobile Tech Lead

Colossyan; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading audio tech company is seeking a Mobile Tech Lead to guide their app engineers and drive development of their Core App. The ideal candidate will have experience in leading teams, expertise in Kotlin and Swift, and a dedication to building high-quality, user-centered features. This hands-on role offers opportunities to shape product direction and develop talent within the team.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Private Medical Insurance

25 days of holiday

Generous referral bonus scheme

Access to well-being programs

Yoto player and starter pack

Volunteer days

Qualifications

• Experience leading engineers with a people-first mindset.
• Proficient in providing and receiving continuous feedback.
• Ability to coach engineers to reach their potential.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Proficiency in modern app development and tooling.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support a team of app engineers.
• Work with leads to set direction for Yoto apps.
• Collaborate to shape roadmap and prioritize features.
• Ensure quality through testing and robust practices.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding process.

Skills

Leadership

App development

Team management

Stakeholder management

Communication

Continuous feedback

Coaching

Problem-solving

Tools

Kotlin

Swift

Jetpack Compose

SwiftUI

Job description

Mobile Tech Lead

We’re looking for an App leader who’s as passionate about building brilliant experiences for families as they are about building great teams. This is a hands‑on role where you’ll balance delivery with people management and development, guide our app engineering efforts and support a small team of talented engineers as we continue to grow.

About Yoto

Yoto is a screen‑free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels – think Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Universal Music. We also create Yoto Originals like BrainBots.

• Voted the 14th fastest‑growing private software technology company in Britain in The Sunday Times 100 Tech 2025; and named the 94th fastest‑growing company in Europe in the prestigious FT1000.
• Ranked 9th in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in 2024; and featured in the Sifted 100 fastest‑growing startups across the UK&I by revenue growth.
• Featured in Bloomberg’s 25 UK startups to watch in 2023; and ranked second fastest growing tech company in the UK in the Deloitte Fast50.
• Named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Inventions of 2020.
• We’re over 200 employees spread across the world… and growing!

We’re on a mission to be the soundtrack of childhood, and help families on their own unique adventures. By creating products that inspire independent play, we help families discover and grow with an inspiring world of audio – and we would like you to help us achieve it!

Core App at Yoto

Our Core App team is made up of 4 app engineers and one QA across Android and iOS. The app is designed to support parents giving them access to their whole content library, enable them to make their own content, set player settings & remote control the Yoto player, play content on their phone and in the car via Android Auto & Apple CarPlay, and purchase more content via our Discover hub in the app.

Our codebases are written entirely in Kotlin and Swift, and most of our UI is now in Jetpack Compose or SwiftUI. We are constantly looking for ways to improve and modernise these codebases.

Our user base is expanding rapidly, and we aim to grow the team sustainably to scale our codebase and support new features while refining existing work. We are particularly committed to improving performance and stability, as evidenced by our excellent crash‑free rate and App Store reviews.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead and support a team of app engineers (Core App team), helping them grow and do their best work.
• Line‑management of 4 app engineers and 1 QA.
• Work with the Lead Software Engineers and Product Manager to set the direction for the Yoto apps and ensure we’re building scalable, high‑quality features.
• Work with the Head of Engineering to build and maintain a team aligned to the company’s goals and strategic vision.
• Collaborate across teams to shape our roadmap and prioritise the right things for families using Yoto around the world.
• Ensure quality through testing (unit, integration, E2E) and robust development practices.
• Take part in hiring, onboarding, and shaping how we work as a team.
• Contribute to wider technical decisions around architecture, tooling and ways of working.

What you’ll bring

• Experienced leading engineers, and a people‑first mindset.
• Proficient in giving & receiving continuous feedback and running annual performance reviews.
• Ability to coach engineers to be the best they can be.
• A delivery focused mindset, balancing people, process, technical and product viewpoints.
• Stakeholder management.
• Strong communication skills both written and verbal.
• Proficiency with modern App development & tooling.
• Strong experience in native app development, with a solid grasp of app architecture and design patterns (MVVM, MVP, MVC).
• Comfortable working in a fast‑paced scale‑up environment, where things move quickly.
• Confident collaborating across disciplines and communicating your ideas clearly.
• A practical, thoughtful approach to delivering high‑quality, user‑centred features.

We’re a small tech team so you’ll get a chance to play with plenty of different things all the time – bonus points for any experience or desire to dig into any of the following:

• Cloud‑based infrastructures (AWS), serverless development
• Experience with popular IoT protocols (RFID/NFC, Bluetooth/BLE, WiFi, MQTT)
• Apple CarPlay, Android Auto
• Understanding responsive design principles, speed optimisation techniques, web standards, accessibility
• Media streaming and audio processing (codecs, live streaming, normalisation, etc)

Salary: £90,000 – £100,000 based on experience

What you can expect from Yoto

• Flexibility: Hybrid working – expectation of 1 day a week in our London office, but you are welcome to come in more. Take advantage of our ‘work from anywhere’ policy to work from a different location for up to 6 weeks every year. Summer Hours policy to use between June and August.
• Financial: Receive Income Protection, covering long‑term sickness for up to 2 years and company sick pay that increases with length of service. Life Assurance cover from day one. Workplace Pension offering up to 3% employer contributions following probation. Generous employee referral bonus scheme.
• Health & Wellness: Private Medical Insurance via Aviva, or a Wellbeing Allowance, access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) through WeCare, unlimited access to Dental advice via Toothfairy, Bike to work scheme.
• Time Off: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays, a birthday off, and 1 extra day each year after 2 years up to 5 days. After 4 years, eligible for sabbatical policy of up to 3 months unpaid.
• Helping Families: Variety of family‑friendly leave, including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, fertility, pregnancy loss and carers leave. Unlock savings with our workplace nursery scheme.
• People & Planet: Up to 2 volunteer days a year. Book Allowance up to £50 a year to support professional development.
• Fun Perks: You receive your very own Yoto player and starter pack of cards! Regular company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity

At Yoto, we love creating a world where childhood is rich with discovery and joy. We’re also passionate about building a workplace where everyone can thrive – professionally and personally. We value flexibility and give our team the freedom to balance life and work in ways that suit them.

We're committed to fostering a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported. Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group holds bi‑monthly forums to elevate diverse voices and perspectives, ensuring everyone at Yoto feels heard, respected and appreciated.

We don’t just embrace differences – we celebrate them. We share audio content from a vibrant and diverse community of creators. We invite candidates from all walks of life to explore opportunities with us and join a company that champions flexibility, equity, and inclusion.
Take a look at our website for more information on our approach to People and Planet.

Please only apply or engage with Yoto jobs posted on our careers page (careers.yotoplay.com or careers.yotoplay.com/en). All correspondence from our Talent team will only come through Teamtailor, our application tracking system.

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