iOS Engineer - Privacy - remote

Posted 3 years ago

About Brave

Brave is on a mission to save privacy on the web. We make a web browser which protects privacy by blocking tracking by default, right out of the box. We offer completely private ads (opt-in!) as an alternative to the invasive surveillance online so that you can directly contribute to the sites you visit and appreciate.

Our roughly 100-person team orbits a “main”office of about 30 in San Francisco with smaller clusters or individual contributors spread around the world. Our work style combines an in-person culture in the SF office with remote-inclusive practices emphasizing live conversations by video call and fast and slow chat on Slack. Brave’s technical life is centered around GitHub, where we design, deliver, and document our work.

Job Brief

The immediate tasks of this position will be to improve the privacy protections available Brave’s iOS browser. This includes both implementing privacy protections already available in Brave’s desktop and Android browsers, and implementing iOS specific features to work around the capabilities and limitations of the platform.

Representative projects include implementing fingerprint randomization and cosmetic filtering on iOS. Other possible projects include building or incorporating crawlers to build lists consumed by the client, and working with WebKit upstream to implement fixes and features that would benefit Brave.

This position would report to the privacy team in Brave, but would work closely with the iOS team.

Position Background

Brave on iOS currently lags behind the privacy &security protections we’re able to offer on other platforms like Android and desktop. The iOS team is always seeking to improve the situation, but in many cases we’re limited by the constrained set of capabilities available to WKWebView. The WebKit team is aware of these limits and they’re actively amenable to working with us to expose and develop these capabilities for Brave.

Candidate Expectations

A successful candidate should:

  • have experience with iOS development, Swift, &C/C++, and
  • possess a privacy and security mindset with empathy for the needs of the people who use Brave.
  • have an understanding of how websites and web applications work and are deployed. Experience with JavaScript is a strong plus as well.