Job Description

At AppLovin, we believe great mobile experiences are crafted, not assembled. Our new social platform venture — a startup operating within AppLovin — is looking for mobile engineering interns for Summer 2027 to help build a consumer app from the ground up, focused on content discovery, real-time social interaction, and creator tools. You'll work directly on production code alongside the founding engineering team, tackling real technical challenges in performance, media rendering, and UI — not triaging bugs or writing test scripts in a corner.

About the Team

Our mobile team owns the entire user-facing experience across iOS and Android — from fluid, gesture-driven content feeds to media capture, video editing, real-time interaction, and the architecture that makes all of it scale. We care deeply about performance, user delight, and decisions that will hold up as the product grows. As an intern, you'll be embedded in the team's sprint cycle with a dedicated senior engineer mentor on your platform, and you'll own a defined project with a clear path to production before your internship ends.

About Gist

Gist is a new social media platform for people who want substance — practical, thoughtful content that spans philosophy debates, city-specific recommendations, seasonal gift guides, and wellness tips. Across categories like travel, food, career, and family, we describe it as "a handbook for the curious."
Gist is built by AppLovin Corporation — a company that hit $5.3B in revenue last year and sits alongside Google and Meta as one of the world's leading ad tech platforms. Fortune recognizes AppLovin as one of the Best Workplaces in the Bay Area, and the company has been a Certified Great Place to Work for the last four years (2021–2024).

What You'll Do

• Build and ship features within our iOS or Android application, working end-to-end from design discussion to production-ready code.
• Own a focused internship project — scoped with a clear deliverable and real impact on the user experience.
• Participate in code reviews, architecture discussions, and cross-functional syncs with product and design.
• Investigate and resolve issues related to UI responsiveness, memory usage, media playback, or platform behaviour.
• Collaborate with backend and design team members to implement features with a high bar for quality and feel.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Proficiency in Swift (iOS) or Kotlin/Java (Android), with a working understanding of the relevant platform SDK and UI framework (UIKit / SwiftUI or Android SDK / Jetpack).
• Solid grasp of mobile fundamentals on your platform — app lifecycle, memory management, threading, and layout systems.
• Strong problem-solving instincts and attention to how things feel to a user, not just whether they function.
• Eagerness to learn quickly, take feedback, and contribute meaningfully in a fast-moving team.

Good To Have

• Any personal project, coursework, or open-source work involving mobile development — shipping something to the App Store or Play Store is a strong signal.
• iOS: exposure to AVFoundation, Core Image, or Instruments for performance profiling.
• Android: familiarity with Jetpack libraries (Room, LiveData, ViewModel, Compose) or Android Studio Profiler.
• Interest in video, media processing, real-time messaging, content creation tools, or social platforms.
• Comfort working in ambiguous, fast-iteration environments where the product is still being defined.