Principal iOS Engineer (Contract, Outside IR35)

Come and join the hedgehog lab team for a six-month contract on a well-known UK bank's iOS app, leading two Senior iOS Engineers and setting the technical direction from day one.

The contract

Six-month contract, starting 5 January 2027.

Outside IR35.

Remote first, with some time on site.


Why you'll want this

Principal contracts often mean being dropped into a client team with a big title and little say.

On this one you'll lead the iOS side of a hedgehog lab team, working on a banking app customers use every day.


What's in it for you

You'll help set the technical direction of a large, established Swift codebase, including where its architecture goes next.

You'll lead two Senior iOS Engineers and help them do their best work.

You'll stay hands-on, shaping the code as well as the decisions.

With a 5 January start, you can line up your next contract before Christmas.


Who you'll be doing it for

hedgehog lab is a digital product consultancy with 20 years of experience. We're B Corp and Great Place to Work certified, with around 100 people working remote first across the UK.

This engagement is with a well-known UK bank, on its customer-facing iOS app. You'll lead the iOS work in a team with two Senior iOS Engineers, a Senior Android Engineer and two QAs.


What you'll be doing

Agreeing the app's architectural direction with the bank's engineers, including any further move from Clean Swift towards MVVM and where SwiftUI fits.

Setting standards for testing, security and code review across the iOS team.

Mentoring the Senior engineers and helping the team make sound technical decisions.

Building features and refactoring safely, with tests protecting existing behaviour.

Leading on tricky defects and performance problems.


What you'll need

Extensive commercial iOS experience with Swift and deep knowledge of core iOS frameworks.

Experience leading iOS engineers and owning technical decisions on large, established apps.

A strong understanding of MVVM, MVC and Clean Swift, and the trade-offs between them.

Unit testing experience, including mocking, dependency injection and asynchronous code.

Practical mobile security knowledge, including secure storage, secure networking and certificate pinning.

Experience profiling and improving performance with Instruments.

It would help if you've worked on banking, fintech or other regulated apps, supported production releases, or led a move to Swift Concurrency or SwiftUI.


Next steps

If this sounds like your next contract, apply and I'll be in touch to arrange a call.