iOS Engineer - Sponsorships
Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. The terms of our culture should not be set by gate-keeping legacy media or chaos-fueling social media, but by the people who actually make and participate in that culture. Substack’s model, based on direct subscriptions, has fueled an explosion of independent publishing. It empowers creators with economic autonomy, creative ownership, and a direct connection to their most engaged audiences.
About the Sponsorships Team
Our team’s goal is to augment our existing direct subscriptions model with paid sponsorships. Brands are interested in connecting with Substack creators, and Substack creators are interested in making more money, but we want to support this behavior in a way that doesn’t degrade the user experience or undermine trust in the platform.
Everyone contributes to the product direction. Our team regularly brainstorms directly with leadership, and every engineer contributes ideas for new products and experiences. We also sometimes work directly with our Sponsorship partners (e.g. Polymarket) to develop new experiences.
We’re a small team of generalists, so we especially value an interest in working across our tech stack, willingness to prototype, and product-mindedness. You’d be the iOS leader on this team, so code review, mentorship and thoughtful technical architecting will also be key pieces of this role.
Responsibilities
Develop new and existing sponsorship experiences in the core iOS app for creators and their audiences.
Contribute to high level product and brainstorming discussions around sponsorship experiences.
Iterate on key flows in the Substack mobile apps and web platform, and run A/B tests.
Collaborate with designers, writers, support staff, and many others. From product concept and research to implementation, experimentation, and measurement, we expect you to own your work and deliver high-quality solutions.
Work directly with customers to solve their problems. The entire company (CEO included) participates in customer support in order to drive empathy for our users and help us build better products.
Our team also works directly with Sponsorship partners (we often say “build-with” partners) to gather product ideas and find solutions that work for both brands and creators.
Requirements
At least 3+ years of software engineering experience.
Experience shipping high quality, native iOS apps to the App Store. Bonus for both SwiftUI and UIKit.
Independent and autonomous. We’re too small to micromanage, and expect that every person at the company owns their work and can be a leader.
Hold yourself and others to a high standard when working on production systems.
Take pride in building elegant and delightful product experiences. Substack works best when it gets out of the way so creators can focus on writing and connecting with their readers.
Enjoy collaboration with a diverse group of thinkers while bringing our own unique experience and background to the team.
Believe in Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing.
Experience at a fast-growing startup or working on a high-performing growth team is not required, but is a plus.
Substack's compensation package includes a market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation salary range for this role is $140,000 - $260,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.
Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you.
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Skills Required
- At least 3 years of software engineering experience
- Experience shipping high-quality native iOS applications to the App Store
- Experience with SwiftUI and UIKit
- Ability to work independently and autonomously
- High standards when working on production systems
- Commitment to building elegant and user-friendly product experiences
- Ability to collaborate with a diverse group of thinkers
- Alignment with Substack’s mission to build a better business model for writing
- Experience at a fast-growing startup or high-performing growth team
What We Do
Substack lets writers connect with their audience on their own terms and earn money doing it. We make it simple for writers to publish to an email list that they own, get discovered on the web, and charge for subscriptions. More than 500,000 people pay to subscribe to writers across the Substack network, and the top writers make millions of dollars a year. Substack’s model depends on the success of writers using Substack – we only make money when they do. “Substack makes it dead simple to start a newsletter and get paid for it.” – Judd Legum, author of Popular Information "Substack gives me a way to connect with my audience on my own terms.” – Lyz Lenz, author of God Land and Men Yell At Me Make something that matters Great writing is valuable. It respects readers' time, their intelligence, and their trust. It helps us make sense of and change the culture we live in. At Substack, we're building a business model that enables great writing to thrive. Learn more about our opportunity and mission. We are a small but growing team, and there is more to build than we could ever imagine. That’s why we need you. We aim to take pragmatic approaches to problem solving while shipping high-quality products that allow the writing on Substack to take the spotlight. Every person at the company participates in customer support. We do this to build empathy with our users and enable us to build better products. We believe that a diverse team will help us build a product that best serves the needs of a wildly diverse ecosystem of writers. So whatever your background or perspective, we’d welcome your input to help build the best possible version of Substack.
