Stabilization · 12 weeks, fixed scope
Your senior iOS engineer just left
12-week stabilization for European scale-ups
Acting iOS lead for 12 weeks. Stabilize the team, support the hire, grow the next lead from inside.
- Duration
- 12 weeks
- Investment
- €55k all in
- Shape
- Acting iOS lead, embedded
Your senior iOS engineer gives notice on Friday. By Monday, you're making a list of the knowledge that walks out the door with them: the release script nobody else has run, the code signing setup, the architectural decisions that weren't documented.
You've got a release in three weeks. A team of four iOS engineers who all know parts of the codebase, none of whom has run a release or sat in a roadmap meeting. And a hire to run that's going to take three to four months even if it goes well.
You don't need a permanent hire today. You need someone in the seat for the next 12 weeks who can ship the next release, support the hire, and leave the team measurably better than they found it.
This is the engagement.
Who this is for
You're a CTO, VP Engineering, or Head of Mobile at a European scale-up. Your lead iOS engineer has resigned, given notice, or quietly disengaged. The iOS team is two to six people. The app is in production. Mobile is material to the business.
What I do
-
Week 1
A written audit
Codebase, release pipeline, on-call, App Store and provisioning ownership, the knowledge that lives in one person's head. Delivered as a document, not a deck.
-
Weeks 2–12
Acting iOS lead, embedded in the team
Front-loaded. About three days a week for the first month, two for the second, one for the third as I hand over.
- Running planning, technical review, and release cadence.
- Owning the releases end-to-end.
- Hiring the replacement with you: Job description calibration, sourcing input, technical screens, structuring the loop.
- Identifying and growing the next iOS tech lead from inside the team. Most teams have one, the senior who needs eight weeks of structured support and isn't getting it.
- A weekly written update for you. A monthly one-pager you can paste straight into the board update.
-
Day one of the new hire
An onboarding playbook in their hands
Written by the person who just spent twelve weeks inside the codebase, the ritual structure, and the stakeholder map.
Not included
- Net-new product features
- Android
- Long-term IC contribution after the replacement lands
- Being the permanent hire myself
Shape
Fixed scope
12 weeks, fixed scope. Two-week risk-reversal window at half rate. If it isn't working in the first two weeks, you've spent half. I'd rather you find that out cheaply.
Investment
€55k all in
Billed in monthly rates.
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