WhatsApp
Swift
iOS
FirebaseWhy hire iOS Developers through us
- Vetted through technical screening and a practical exercise
- You interview and choose every candidate
- Working hours overlap with your team
- NDA and full IP assignment to your company
- Monthly terms, trial period and free replacement
Roles and seniority
| Level | What they do |
|---|---|
| Mid-level | Builds screens and features, integrates APIs |
| Senior | Owns architecture, performance and App Store releases |
| Lead | Sets iOS standards and CI/CD |
Skills matrix
What great iOS Developers look like
Great iOS developers care about the details Apple users notice: smooth scrolling, correct navigation patterns, Dynamic Type and VoiceOver support, sensible permission prompts and battery-friendly behaviour. They understand App Store Review Guidelines, use Instruments to find performance problems and adopt new Apple frameworks thoughtfully.
Questions we ask in technical interviews
- When would you use SwiftUI versus UIKit?
- How do you manage concurrency with async/await and actors?
- How do you implement subscriptions with StoreKit 2?
- How do you diagnose a memory leak?
Typical projects for iOS Developers
- New native iPhone apps
- Migrating Objective-C code to Swift
- Apple Watch, widgets and Live Activities
- App Store rejection fixes
The first 30 days with a new iOS developer
Every engagement starts with a short, structured onboarding so you see useful output early and can judge fit quickly. A typical first month looks like this:
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Week 1 — Setup
Builds the project in Xcode, reviews architecture, signing and dependencies, and ships a small fix.
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Week 2 — Feature
Delivers a SwiftUI or UIKit feature with unit tests and a TestFlight build.
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Week 3 — Stability
Reviews crash reports and memory warnings and fixes the most frequent issues.
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Week 4 — Ownership
Takes a release through App Store review, including privacy labels and release notes.
What to look for beyond the CV
Years of experience and a list of technologies say little about how someone works. In our screening and in your interviews, these are the signals that matter most:
- Comfortable mixing SwiftUI and UIKit in real codebases
- Uses Swift concurrency correctly and avoids main-thread blocking
- Knows App Store review guidelines and privacy requirements
- Profiles with Instruments, not guesswork
- Supports accessibility features such as Dynamic Type and VoiceOver
Native iOS or cross-platform?
Hire a native iOS developer when the app relies on Apple-specific features — HealthKit, widgets, Apple Watch, advanced camera or AR — or when polish on iPhone is critical. For shared iOS and Android apps, compare Flutter and React Native developers.
The iOS developer’s toolkit
Red flags when hiring iOS developers
- No experience with App Store review, rejections and resubmission
- Cannot explain memory management, retain cycles or how they find them
- Has only worked in UIKit storyboards and avoids SwiftUI entirely — or the reverse, with no UIKit knowledge for older screens
- Ignores accessibility features such as Dynamic Type and VoiceOver
- Has never shipped an update that preserved user data across a schema change
Engagement options for iOS work
| Situation | Typical team | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| New iOS app | iOS developer, designer, back-end support | Often paired with an Android developer or a cross-platform plan |
| Extra capacity on an existing app | One iOS developer | Works in your repository and release process |
| Modernising an older app | One or two iOS developers | Incremental move from Objective-C or UIKit to Swift and SwiftUI |
| New Apple platform features | iOS developer for a fixed scope | Widgets, Live Activities, Apple Watch or App Clips |
See also iOS app development, mobile app modernization and wearable apps.
Keeping up with Apple’s yearly cycle
Apple releases a new iOS version every autumn, with new requirements following through the year: updated SDK minimums for App Store submissions, privacy requirements and deprecations. A good iOS developer tests your app on beta releases over the summer, plans which new features are worth adopting, and keeps the minimum supported iOS version under review so the codebase does not carry unnecessary compatibility code for years.
Questions to settle before an iOS developer starts
- Access to your Apple Developer account, certificates and App Store Connect roles
- The minimum iOS version you support and the devices used for testing
- Whether the app shares logic or design with an Android app or website
- How releases are approved and who handles App Store review communication
- Crash reporting, analytics and feature-flag tools already in place
- Any Apple frameworks with special entitlements, such as HealthKit, Apple Pay or push notifications
Some entitlements and capabilities need Apple approval or account configuration, so identifying them early prevents waiting time later.
Typical early wins
An iOS developer joining an existing app often starts with work that lowers risk: automating builds and TestFlight distribution, reviewing crash reports and fixing the most frequent crashes, supporting Dynamic Type and VoiceOver on key screens, and introducing SwiftUI for new screens while leaving stable UIKit code in place. Each change improves the app for users without a risky rewrite.
We agree this balance with your product owner in the first week. Improvements that reduce crashes or review rejections usually come first, because they protect every later release and your App Store rating.
Larger changes, such as adopting SwiftUI navigation, are planned as separate pieces of work.
Ways to engage
| Model | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Full-time dedicated | 40 hours a week on your work | Ongoing product development |
| Part-time | 20 hours a week | Maintenance and smaller roadmaps |
| Team | Several specialists with a lead | New products and workstreams |
Rates depend on seniority and engagement length; you receive a written rate card within one business day. Prefer a managed project? See iOS app development.
Need a different skill set? See every role on Hire Software Developers.