Principal AR/3D Mobile Architect

Role summary

We’re hiring a senior technical authority to own the architecture of a native iOS and Android mobile platform whose core is a real-time AR and 3D-motion-rendering experience. This is a decisions-and-ownership role, front-loaded and fractional/interim — you make and document the structural calls the engineering team builds against, then taper to oversight. It is not a feature-development or ticket-closing seat. The engagement starts fractional/interim, with strong potential to extend into a larger ongoing or full-time role by mutual fit.

What you’ll own

• The mobile architecture decision record — native iOS and Android app structure, module boundaries, and the finalized native AR/3D approach, documented as a single source of truth the team builds against.
• Native AR architecture on both platforms — ARKit/RealityKit (iOS) and ARCore (Android): environment scan, plane detection, spatial anchoring, cross-device spatial consistency, and the flow of AR/sensor/telemetry data into the app and backend.
• Real-time on-device 3D motion rendering — skeletal and mesh motion data rendered as an interactive scene the user can pause, scrub, zoom, and rotate (RealityKit on iOS, Jetpack SceneCore/SceneView on Android).
• Real-time and backend integration — live session sync, authentication/identity binding, and API patterns against a cloud backend.
• Cross-platform strategy — establish the iOS architecture first, then define how Android mirrors it.
• Performance, battery, and device-compatibility strategy across a broad device matrix; technical direction and mentorship for native and AR engineers.

What you must have

Stated as ownership claims, not a skills checklist — a keyword-matcher can mirror a skills list but not an accountability story.
• Has architected production native AR on both ARKit/RealityKit and ARCore, and been accountable for how it performed and scaled on-device (direction-level is fine — you guide AR engineers rather than write every line).
• Has rendered and manipulated live 3D content on-device — a scene the user drives in real time — not just placed pre-built 3D assets into a camera view.
• Has owned the architecture of production native apps on both iOS and Android, with deep command of Swift and Kotlin.
• Has handled high-bandwidth media / demanding data throughput on mobile — continuous video streaming plus concurrent XR/sensor and AI-pipeline data — without wrecking frame rate or battery.
• Has architected real-time mobile features (live video/audio, session sync) integrated with cloud backends and identity systems.
• Can decide quickly, document clearly, and align a small distributed team with little oversight.

Strongly preferred

• Built production AR natively rather than through a cross-platform game engine — and understands its on-device performance and failure modes first-hand.
• Background in AR/XR, sports-tech, motion capture, media, or games-plus-application products where polished UX and a real-time AR/3D experience coexist.
• Real-time comms SDKs (e.g., Agora); Azure backends and Microsoft Entra identity; multi-tenant SaaS architecture.
• Comfortable operating fractional/interim — fast to ramp, decisive, effective without heavy supervision.

**No need to apply if your experience doesn't answer these specific questions:

Q1 — Describe one production AR feature you architected. What was rendered, how the 3D content got on-screen, and specifically: was the user manipulating pre-built assets, or live/generated geometry like a moving skeleton or mesh? Name the app; link the store listing if public.

Q2 — Name two concrete places where ARKit’s and ARCore’s native APIs diverge, and how you’d design a shared architecture so both behave consistently.

Q3 — High-bandwidth media: In a live session you have streaming video + XR/sensor telemetry + AI-pipeline data flowing off-device at once. How do you keep that from tanking frame rate and battery?

Q4 — Name one AR-specific on-device failure you hit in production (tracking loss, thermal throttle, anchor drift, etc.) and how you diagnosed it.