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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Android Engineer

💰 $ - $

EngineeringMobileAndroidSoftware Development

🎯 Role Definition

We are seeking an experienced Android Engineer who can own end-to-end mobile features, write clean and maintainable Kotlin/Java code, and collaborate closely with product, design and backend teams to deliver performant, accessible, and secure Android applications at scale. The ideal candidate has strong experience with modern Android architecture (MVVM/Clean), Jetpack libraries, Compose or XML UI, automated testing, CI/CD, and Play Store deployment.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Android Developer or Mobile Developer with 1–3 years of experience
  • Software Engineer (Backend/Full-stack) transitioning into mobile engineering
  • Recent Computer Science/Engineering graduate who has shipped mobile apps or internships

Advancement To:

  • Senior Android Engineer / Lead Android Engineer
  • Mobile Tech Lead or Staff Android Engineer
  • Principal Engineer or Engineering Manager (Mobile)
  • Director of Engineering (Mobile) / Head of Mobile

Lateral Moves:

  • iOS Engineer or Cross‑platform Engineer (Flutter / React Native)
  • Mobile SDK / Platform Engineer (tooling and developer experience)
  • Product Manager for mobile products
  • Site Reliability Engineer focusing on mobile CI/CD and release automation

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead design and implementation of complex Android features from concept through release, translating product requirements into robust architecture and incremental delivery plans that balance speed and long-term maintainability.
  • Write high-quality, production-ready Kotlin (and legacy Java where applicable) code using modern Android best practices, including Jetpack libraries (Lifecycle, ViewModel, LiveData/Flow), dependency injection (Hilt/Dagger), and reactive/coroutine patterns.
  • Own and evolve the app architecture using MVVM, Clean Architecture, or similar patterns to ensure separation of concerns, testability, and minimal coupling between UI, domain, and data layers.
  • Design and build responsive, accessible, and polished UI components using Jetpack Compose or Android XML layouts, collaborating with UX designers to implement pixel-perfect interactions and animations.
  • Integrate and maintain robust networking layers using Retrofit/OkHttp, GraphQL or REST APIs, with comprehensive handling of connectivity, caching, retries, and offline-first scenarios.
  • Implement persistent storage using Room, SQLite, or other on-device storage solutions; design data models and migration strategies that ensure safe upgrades and data integrity.
  • Build and maintain automated test suites (unit, integration and UI) using JUnit, Robolectric, Espresso, and Compose testing frameworks to ensure code quality and safe refactors.
  • Optimize application performance across CPU, memory, battery and startup time using Android Profiler, Systrace, LeakCanary, and other profiling tools; identify and remediate ANRs, memory leaks and jank.
  • Drive continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines for Android builds, using Gradle, Fastlane, GitHub Actions, Bitrise or Jenkins, automating build, test and Play Store deployment workflows.
  • Manage release cycles and perform Play Store deployments, managing variants/flavors, signing keys, versioning, feature flags, staged rollouts, and regression monitoring through Google Play Console and release monitoring tools.
  • Collaborate with backend engineers to design API contracts, observability (logs, metrics), schema evolution and error-handling strategies to ensure resilient client-server interactions.
  • Mentor junior engineers through design reviews, pair programming, regular code reviews, and by establishing coding standards and best practices for the mobile team.
  • Maintain and improve app security, including secure storage of credentials, proper use of Android permissions, encryption (TLS), secure network configuration, and mitigation of common mobile vulnerabilities.
  • Develop and maintain internal libraries, shared modules and SDKs used across multiple apps, ensuring they are well-documented, versioned and backward-compatible.
  • Implement analytics, telemetry and A/B testing instrumentation (Firebase Analytics, Amplitude, Sentry, Crashlytics) to measure feature impact, adoption and regression metrics; use data to inform product decisions.
  • Troubleshoot and triage production issues (crashes, ANRs, performance regressions) using crash reporting and observability platforms; lead postmortems and remediation plans to maintain high stability and availability.
  • Contribute to product discovery and technical feasibility discussions, estimating effort, identifying risks and proposing scalable alternatives for mobile-first and mobile-critical experiences.
  • Ensure high code quality through enforceable linting, static analysis (Detekt, ktlint, SonarQube), and well-curated architectural documentation and style guides.
  • Drive cross-functional alignment with QA, Design, Product and Security teams to set release criteria, acceptance tests, and rollout strategies, balancing user experience with operational safety.
  • Participate in sprint planning and Agile ceremonies, define clear acceptance criteria, decompose stories into actionable tasks, and own stories to completion with measurable outcomes.
  • Research, evaluate and introduce new Android technologies, libraries and processes (e.g., Jetpack Compose, Kotlin Multiplatform, modularization) to improve developer productivity and app quality.
  • Contribute to a culture of feedback and continuous improvement by proposing refactors, technical debt reduction efforts, and performance optimization roadmaps with prioritized tradeoffs.
  • Create and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, onboarding guides and runbooks for app architecture, release processes and incident response.
  • Provide support for platform-specific integrations, such as background work (WorkManager), push notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging), deep links, authentication flows (OAuth/OIDC), and biometric security.
  • Ensure compliance with app store policies, privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA), and internal data handling policies by implementing consent flows, telemetry controls and user data minimization.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide on-call support and assist in triaging mobile incidents outside business hours when required; maintain incident rotation documentation and escalation procedures.
  • Support ad-hoc feature prototyping, spike work and technical POCs to validate new platform capabilities or third-party integrations.
  • Contribute to hiring interviews, candidate technical assessments and onboarding of new mobile engineers.
  • Collaborate with mobile QA to design test plans, reproduce hard-to-find issues and ensure high test coverage for critical user flows.
  • Help maintain and evolve a shared component library and design tokens for consistent look-and-feel across multiple Android apps.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient in Kotlin and Java, with idiomatic Kotlin experience (coroutines, sealed classes, extension functions, null-safety).
  • Deep knowledge of Android SDK, Jetpack libraries (ViewModel, LiveData/Flow, Navigation, WorkManager, Paging) and Jetpack Compose.
  • Strong architecture skills: MVVM, Clean Architecture, modularization and dependency injection (Hilt/Dagger, Koin).
  • Experience integrating REST and GraphQL APIs using Retrofit, OkHttp, Apollo or similar libraries, including authentication and offline caching strategies.
  • Expertise in local persistence using Room, SQLite, SharedPreferences and data migration strategies.
  • Solid background in asynchronous programming: Kotlin Coroutines, Flow, RxJava (when applicable) and concurrency patterns on Android.
  • Familiarity with build systems and dependency management: Gradle, Kotlin DSL, flavors, ProGuard/R8 configuration and multi-module projects.
  • Automated testing experience: unit testing (JUnit, Mockito/MockK), integration tests and UI testing with Espresso and Compose testing libraries.
  • CI/CD and release management: experience with Fastlane, GitHub Actions, Bitrise or similar tools for automated builds, signing and Play Store deployments.
  • Performance and memory profiling skills with Android Profiler, LeakCanary, Systrace, and experience reducing app size and improving startup time.
  • Knowledge of Play Store processes: app bundles (AAB), versioning, staged rollouts, and Play Console metrics.
  • Practical experience with crash reporting and observability tools: Firebase Crashlytics, Sentry, Datadog, New Relic or similar.
  • Familiarity with mobile security best practices: secure storage, certificate pinning, TLS, and handling Android permissions properly.
  • Experience with analytics and experimentation platforms (Firebase Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel) and using telemetry to drive product decisions.
  • Exposure to cross-platform or multiplatform solutions (Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile, Flutter, React Native) is a plus.
  • Experience creating and maintaining internal SDKs, libraries and APIs for reuse across multiple apps.

Soft Skills

  • Strong ownership mentality and ability to take features from requirements to production, accepting responsibility for quality and outcomes.
  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs clearly to product, design and business stakeholders.
  • Collaborative team player who can mentor colleagues, synthesize feedback, and maintain constructive code reviews.
  • Problem-solving mindset with ability to identify root causes, propose mitigations and balance short-term needs with long-term maintainability.
  • Adaptability to fast-changing priorities and ability to manage competing demands in a product-driven environment.
  • Attention to detail, with a focus on UX polish, accessibility and inclusivity for diverse user populations.
  • Data-informed decision making: comfortable using telemetry and analytics to prioritize work and measure success.
  • Time management and planning skills to estimate tasks reliably and deliver on sprint commitments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, or related technical discipline.
  • Relevant professional certifications or completed coursework in mobile development, Android architecture or cloud APIs.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science / Software Engineering
  • Mobile Computing / Human-Computer Interaction
  • Information Systems / Applied Mathematics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–8+ years total software engineering experience, with at least 2–4 years focused on native Android application development for mid-level roles; 5+ years and proven ownership for senior roles.

Preferred:

  • Experience shipping multiple consumer or enterprise Android apps to the Play Store and maintaining them through several major versions.
  • Demonstrated track record of improving app performance, reducing crash rates and delivering measurable user or business outcomes (e.g., retention, conversion).
  • Experience working in Agile teams, collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders, and mentoring junior engineers.
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