Senior macOS Desktop Developer

Job description

**Senior macOS Desktop Developer** **Key Responsibilities** - Design, develop and maintain features for a macOS desktop application built using Swift, Objective-C and native Apple frameworks such as AppKit and Foundation. - Work on secure inter-process communication mechanisms such as XPC services, app groups, local sockets, secure pipes or other multi-process communication patterns. - Build and integrate local services, background agents or helper tools that interact with external APIs. - Develop and maintain components that interact with local or remote databases and persistent storage. - Take ownership of specific modules, ensuring reliability, performance and maintainability across supported macOS versions. - Collaborate with the Lead Engineer, product owners and other developers to shape technical solutions. - Contribute to architectural and design discussions, particularly around native macOS application architecture, security, packaging and deployment. - Participate in code reviews, sprint planning and improvements to development practices. - Work within Agile methodologies, following Scrum or Kanban workflows. - Mentor junior developers at a later stage as the team grows. **Essential Skills and Experience** - A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in software development. - Strong proficiency in Swift and Objective-C for native macOS application development. - Experience building and maintaining macOS desktop applications using AppKit, Foundation and related Apple frameworks. - Good understanding of Cocoa design patterns, memory management, concurrency and application lifecycle on macOS. - Knowledge of inter-process communication, such as XPC, helper tools, service based architectures, local sockets or multi-process systems. - Experience working with APIs from a locally running desktop application. - Understanding of databases (SQL), local persistence and data access patterns. - Strong debugging, performance optimisation and problem solving skills, including use of Xcode, Instruments and crash diagnostics. - Ability to take ownership of features and deliver them independently. - A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics or a related technical discipline. **Preferred Skills** - Experience maintaining mixed Swift and Objective-C codebases, including interoperability, bridging headers and gradual migration approaches. - Experience with modern Swift patterns, Swift concurrency and Swift Package Manager. - Knowledge of local service development, sandboxing, entitlements, code signing, notarisation, packaging and deployment for macOS applications. - Experience with cross platform desktop frameworks or shared business logic across macOS and Windows applications. - Familiarity with dependency injection, MVVM or other maintainable desktop application architecture patterns. **Ways of Working** - Agile environment using Scrum or Kanban. **Personal Attributes** - Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly. - Proactive and organised, comfortable taking ownership of areas of the system. - Collaborative and supportive approach to working within a team. - Commitment to code quality, testing and continuous improvement.