Founding iOS Engineer (m/f/d) // Ferto AI

**About us** Most labs still count cells under a microscope by hand. It's slow, repetitive, and error-prone. We're replacing that manual work with software. By combining a standard microscope with a smartphone, we run computer vision models that locate, track, and measure cells automatically in real time. We're starting with semen analysis and expanding to other routine microscopic samples. Based in Berlin, we're a small, well-funded team founded in 2026 operating in stealth. Our goal is to make automated, reliable diagnostic analysis accessible on any phone connected to a microscope. **The role** We're looking for an iOS engineer who loves the camera. Our app turns an iPhone on a microscope into a lab instrument, and the hard problems live on the device: holding focus on a moving sample, running computer vision in real time, and capturing a recording precise enough for a clinical result. On top of that, the app has to be simple enough for a technician in a busy lab. You'll own it end to end, together with the founders. **What you'll do** * Own the app end to end, from architecture to release. * Push the iPhone camera and on-device models to their limits, so every recording is good enough to analyse. * Design the capture workflow with lab staff, so technicians get it right the first time. * Spend time in the lab, measure what works, and decide what to build next. **What you bring** * **Camera depth.** You've built on the iOS camera stack, not just used it: AVFoundation with manual focus, exposure and white balance, and real-time frame processing. You know where the hardware's limits are. * **On-device ML.** You've run models on the phone and made them fast: CoreML and Vision, quantisation, the Neural Engine, profiling with Instruments. * **Apps you've owned.** You've shipped iOS apps in Swift and SwiftUI and owned them in production. You design an architecture one engineer can carry, and you can explain the trade-offs behind it. * **Product and UX sense.** You turn a messy real-world workflow into something simple, and you test it with the people who use it. * **Built for real conditions.** Offline-first, background uploads, interruptions, data protection. The app works when the network doesn't. * **Beyond the app.** iOS is your home, but when the app needs it, you read the backend and change an API yourself. * **Correctness.** You validate with numbers, not by eye. Tests are part of the feature. You reproduce bugs first and fix the cause, not the symptom. * **AI-native engineering.** Coding agents are part of your daily work. You give them good context, split work into reviewable steps, and stand behind every line you ship. * **Ownership.** You help shape the roadmap, push back on weak ideas, set your own priorities and raise problems early. Nobody has to chase you. * **Range.** You've worked across several companies, stacks or environments. How you work counts far more than how many years you've done it. **Nice to have** * Optics or microscopy imaging. * Apps for professional users: lab, field, clinical or enterprise. * Regulated environments with audits: medical devices, health, finance. **What we offer** * Ownership from day one. As a founding engineer, you're part of the company through our virtual share option plan (VSOP). * You grow with us. You help build the company from the start, and as it grows, your role grows with it. * Real influence. You decide how we build software, and you shape the engineering team we build. * A competitive salary. We share the range in our first conversation. * A product that matters: a medical device for real clinics, built together with clinicians and lab staff. * Flexible hours and office days. We work from Berlin and meet in person regularly, up to several days a week. This isn't a fully remote role. * English is our working language. German isn't required. * We sponsor the EU Blue Card if you're moving to Berlin. **How to apply** Send us your CV to people@fertoai.com.