Lead Software Engineer (Equity-Only)

At Safari Advisor, our mission is to transform African wildlife tourism and conservation through enhanced online and in-park visitor experiences, increased incomes for stakeholders, and ownership for communities. We're seeking a Lead Software Engineer to join our dynamic team and contribute to our innovative wildlife experience, education & conservation technology solutions. We already have multiple Android, iOS, and JavaScript apps in production, with a strong foundation to build on.

Who you are

You have 5+ years of Flutter/Firebase development experience and 7+ years experience building scalable, secure, cross-platform mobile applications. Beyond technical expertise, you take initiative, think like a founder, and understand how engineering decisions impact business goals. You thrive in a fast-moving, autonomous environment, solving complex problems with both logic and creativity. You ensure systems are not just functional but secure, maintainable, and optimized for growth. You’re comfortable balancing hands-on coding with high-level architecture, rapidly shipping code while ensuring security and testing are integral to the development process. This role reports to the CTO.

Responsibilities

• Develop, maintain, and optimize Flutter applications for Android and iOS.
• Architect and manage Firebase services, including Firestore, Cloud Functions, and Authentication.
• Ensure smooth app store submissions, compliance, and troubleshooting for Google Play and Apple App Store.
• Implement testing strategies, including CI/CD, unit tests, integration tests, and Firebase Test Lab.
• Strengthen security, securing client-side code, monitoring logs, and detecting threats.
• Integrate and optimize Firebase Analytics and Google Analytics.
• Lead by example, mentoring junior developers and fostering a collaborative engineering culture.
• Support a React PWA as needed.
• Maintain repo health, enforcing best practices for clean code and issue tracking.
• Bonus: Experience with AI, gamification, or wildlife tourism and conservation is a plus.

Requirements

• Proven track record in cross-platform mobile app development, delivering scalable and high-performance applications.
• Deep expertise in Flutter and Firebase.
• Strong problem-solving skills, with the ability to troubleshoot, debug, and optimize apps for performance and security.
• Experience leading and mentoring developers, fostering collaboration and maintaining code quality.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, able to work independently, make technical decisions, and align engineering efforts with business goals.