Hey, I’m James, one of the founders of Sudowrite.
And I’m angry that writing on mobile sucks.
We have literal supercomputers in our pockets, but mobile writing interfaces
haven't improved in years (I'm looking at you, Apple and Google).
Improving how we write and edit on a phone is an important problem. As a
parent, I have fewer uninterrupted blocks of time at a desk. Many times, the
best ideas come when I'm out in the world.
Writers are begging for better mobile tools.
We launched our mobile app last year. Now over 20% of our users are active on
phones. Some of our users are writing the entire first draft of their book
with their thumbs.
But we’re far from solving this problem. We see a world where writing on a
phone doesn’t feel like a compromise. It just feels like writing.
Do you love building new interfaces that make hard things easy? Do you know
the joy (and pains) of creating a text editor from scratch? If so, let's chat.
🛟
**The Actual Job Listing**
This is a real ownership role.
You won’t just be implementing designs handed to you by committee. You’ll be
helping shape the product and the future of mobile at Sudowrite.
Our mobile app is built in React Native via Expo for iOS and Android.
But this is not a basic app.
It has a custom document editing system built around a TipTap editor running
inside a WebView, with a lightweight bridge between the native app and the
editor.
It uses Y.js for collaboration, and it has multiple persistence and sync
layers. There’s also Smart Dictation built with native Swift bindings, with
intricate audio and transcription features. Oh, and lots of AI text streaming
features, too.
Some days will look like this…
* Improving performance to make the app feel smoother
* Debugging an issue in the React Native ↔ TipTap bridge
* Designing safer sync behavior for offline edits and reconnection
* Fixing a platform-specific annoyance on iOS
Other days will look like this…
* Dogfooding the app to write your own stories
* Chatting with writers to discover their biggest pain points
* Giving a demo to a beta group of users
* Researching other mobile writing interfaces
**What Success Looks Like**
Week 1 - You’ve learned the basics about the app and shipped your first PR.
Month 1 - You’ve shipped features, fixed bugs, and have mastered the
architecture of the app, making it better than when you found it.
Month 3 - You independently own projects, come up with new ideas to make
Sudowrite the best writing app on the planet, and implement them beginning-to-
end.
**About You**
You’ve had 5+ years experience shipping mobile products. You’re deeply
comfortable in React Native, but also familiar with iOS and Android.
Ideally you are also a writer of fiction and know the world of novel writing.
You use AI tools all the time. You routinely manage 8 coding agents across
your codebase, and you know how get them to produce quality code.
You know Expo, including the parts people only learn once they’ve suffered a
little: native modules, EAS builds, OTA updates, and release workflows.
You have strong product taste. You get annoyed when something feels clunky and
overcomplicated.
You can move between code thinking and business thinking. You can say, “This
persistence model is going to bite us later,” and “No one is going to use this
feature, why are we building it?”
You love talking to users, and you don't hesitate hopping on Zoom call to do a
discovery interview.
You can prototype features fast and validate them.
You’re kind, thoughtful, and you’re fun to be around.
You are based in the US.