Swoon
Senior Smart TV Developer / Developer Experience Evaluator
Chicago, Illinois, US
Role snapshot
Swoon is hiring a Senior Smart TV Developer / Developer Experience Evaluator on a full-time basis. This is a role based in Chicago, Illinois, US.
- Company
- Swoon
- Location
- Chicago, Illinois, US
- Job type
- Full-time
- Experience
- 3+ years
- Posted
- Nov 6, 2026
Who this role suits
Practitioners with a few years behind them who can work independently, make trade-offs and help newer teammates.
How to prepare your application
- Prepare examples of decisions you drove, how you measured the result, and how you worked with other teams.
- Be ready to discuss trade-offs and scope, not only the tools you have used.
- Read what Swoon publishes about its product or team, so you can say clearly why this role and this company.
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About the role
You’ve shipped Smart TV apps. You know where developer consoles make life easy—and where they make you click through five screens to do one thing. Now, put that experience to work.
We’re seeking an experienced Smart TV developer for a short-term consulting project comparing the developer experience across five major TV app ecosystems: Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV / Google TV, Apple tvOS, and Samsung Tizen.
This is an opportunity to step beyond building apps and evaluate the tools developers rely on to launch them. Your firsthand experience will help identify what works, what creates friction, and where the biggest opportunities for improvement exist.
Engagement: Short-term contract
Project window: 5 week project
What You’ll Do
You’ll walk through real developer workflows using dummy app packages, evaluate each platform’s console experience, and document your findings—without publicly publishing applications.
Your work will include:
- Putting developer portals to the test: Evaluate onboarding, app submissions, certification, device targeting, pre-validation, and release management.
- Exploring operational tools: Review analytics, crash reporting, subscription funnels, support communications, and publishing automation.
- Finding the friction: Track task completion times, step counts, manual work, error recovery, and the clarity of platform guidance.
- Backing up your observations: Capture annotated screenshots and recorded walkthroughs that show where workflows succeed or fall short.
- Turning experience into actionable feedback: Complete structured scorecards covering workflow efficiency, guidance, capabilities, experience quality, and operational readiness.
The focus is on developer consoles and tooling workflows. Hardware lab testing, code audits, and custom software development are outside the project scope.
What You Bring
- 3+ years of Smart TV app development and deployment experience, with hands-on publishing experience across at least three of these ecosystems:
- Amazon Fire TV
- Roku
- Android TV / Google TV
- Apple tvOS
- Samsung Tizen
- Direct ownership of store listings, binary uploads, pre-submission validation, certification rejections, and release management.
- Familiarity with developer APIs, command-line tools, or CI/CD pipelines used to package and distribute TV apps.
- The ability to explain exactly why a workflow is frustrating—and distinguish a straightforward interface improvement from a deeper platform limitation.
- Strong written communication and a structured approach to documenting findings.
Especially interested in developers with Amazon Fire TV experience plus at least two other TV ecosystems. Experience across four or more platforms is a strong plus.
Schedule & Availability
- 2 weeks - Approximately 1–5 hours per week for access setup, evaluation rubric input, and project coordination.
- 3 weeks - Approximately 15–20 hours per week for workflow execution, session recording, and scorecard completion.
You must be comfortable recording your screen and audio during developer portal walkthroughs for internal analysis.
Why This Project?
A focused assignment. Five major ecosystems. A chance to turn years of publishing experience into practical insight.
If you have strong opinions about app certification, confusing rejection notices, publishing automation, or what makes a developer console great, this project gives those opinions a purpose.
Interested? Apply with your resume!