Hiring Android Engineers: The Complete Guide

# Android Engineer

**Location:** San Francisco, CA (Hybrid) · **Employment Type:** Full-time · **Level:** Mid-Senior

## About [Company]

[Company] is building the leading mobile platform for personal finance management. Our Android app helps over 3 million users track spending, set budgets, and achieve their financial goals. We're obsessed with creating a delightful mobile experience that makes managing money feel effortless.

Our app maintains a 4.7-star Play Store rating, processes 80M+ transactions monthly, and has been featured in Google's "Best Apps" collection. We work closely with Google's Android team and have been invited to Android Developer Summit as partners.

**Why join [Company]?**

- Work on an app used daily by 3M+ people who love it
- Join a 75-person company with a dedicated 14-person mobile team
- Series B funded ($50M from Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital)
- Competitive compensation with meaningful equity
- Engineering-driven culture where quality matters

## The Role

We're looking for an Android Engineer to join our Mobile team. You'll build features that millions of users rely on daily—from transaction categorization to investment tracking to our new AI-powered insights feature.

The ideal candidate has shipped Android apps to the Play Store, cares deeply about code quality and user experience, and wants to work on a product that genuinely helps people. You'll work closely with our design team, backend engineers, and product managers.

This role is **100% Android focused**. You'll spend your time writing Kotlin, building with Jetpack Compose and Views, and crafting smooth experiences across the diverse Android ecosystem.

## What You'll Work On

### First 30 Days
- Get familiar with our codebase, architecture (MVVM + Clean Architecture), and development workflow
- Ship your first feature with guidance from your onboarding buddy
- Learn our Play Store release process and participate in a staged rollout

### First 90 Days
- Own features from design handoff to Play Store release
- Contribute to architecture discussions and code review
- Start contributing to our Compose migration strategy

### First Year
- Lead technical initiatives for major features
- Mentor junior Android engineers
- Shape our Android technical roadmap and tooling decisions

## Objectives of This Role

- Build delightful, performant features that maintain our 4.7-star rating
- Improve app performance: reduce cold start time, optimize memory usage
- Expand our Jetpack Compose adoption for new features
- Reduce ANR rate and improve app stability across device tiers
- Contribute to our design system and reusable component library
- Participate in Play Store optimization and staged rollout strategies

## Responsibilities

**Core Development (70%)**
- Build features using Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, and Android Views
- Implement complex UI including custom animations and transitions
- Integrate with our REST and GraphQL APIs
- Write unit and UI tests for your features
- Optimize performance using Android Profiler
- Maintain and improve our CI/CD pipeline

**Collaboration (20%)**
- Work closely with designers to achieve polished implementations
- Collaborate with backend engineers on API contracts
- Participate in code reviews and architecture discussions
- Contribute to technical documentation

**Quality and Operations (10%)**
- Monitor crash reports and ANRs, fix production issues
- Participate in Play Store submissions and staged rollouts
- Improve test coverage and code quality tooling
- Support feature flagging and A/B testing infrastructure

## Required Skills and Qualifications

**Technical Skills**
- 3+ years of professional Android development experience
- Strong Kotlin proficiency (null safety, coroutines, Flow)
- Solid understanding of Android SDK and Jetpack libraries
- Experience with UI development (XML layouts and/or Compose)
- Understanding of Android lifecycle and memory management
- Experience with RESTful APIs and JSON parsing (Retrofit, Moshi/Gson)
- Familiarity with Git and collaborative development workflows
- Apps shipped to the Play Store

**Soft Skills**
- Strong attention to detail and pride in craft
- Clear written and verbal communication
- Collaborative mindset and ability to receive/give feedback
- Interest in user experience and product quality

## Preferred Skills and Qualifications

- Experience with Jetpack Compose in production
- Experience with MVVM, Clean Architecture, or MVI patterns
- Familiarity with Hilt or Dagger for dependency injection
- Background in fintech or consumer mobile apps
- Contributions to open-source Android projects
- Understanding of accessibility (TalkBack, content descriptions)
- Experience with performance profiling using Android Profiler
- Familiarity with Gradle build optimization

## Tech Stack

**Languages & Frameworks:**
- Kotlin 1.9 (primary)
- Jetpack Compose for new features
- XML Views for existing features
- Coroutines and Flow for async

**Architecture & Patterns:**
- MVVM with Clean Architecture
- Hilt for dependency injection
- Repository pattern for data layer

**Data & Networking:**
- Retrofit with Coroutines
- Room for local persistence
- DataStore for preferences
- OkHttp with interceptors

**Testing & Quality:**
- JUnit 5 for unit testing
- Espresso for UI testing
- MockK for mocking
- Detekt for static analysis

**CI/CD & Tools:**
- Gradle with Kotlin DSL
- GitHub Actions for CI
- Fastlane for deployment
- Firebase App Distribution for internal testing

**Monitoring & Analytics:**
- Firebase Crashlytics for crash reporting
- Play Console Android Vitals
- Feature flags (LaunchDarkly)
- Analytics (Amplitude)

## Compensation and Benefits

**Salary:** $140,000 - $185,000 (based on experience and location)

**Equity:** 0.03% - 0.10% (4-year vest, 1-year cliff)

**Benefits:**

*Health & Wellness*
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee, 80% dependents)
- $150/month wellness stipend
- Mental health support through Headspace

*Time Off*
- Unlimited PTO with 15-day minimum encouraged
- 12 paid company holidays
- 16 weeks paid parental leave
- Flexible sick leave

*Professional Development*
- Google I/O attendance (1 engineer per year, others get time for sessions)
- $2,500 annual learning budget
- Droidcon and KotlinConf attendance encouraged
- Internal tech talks and knowledge sharing

*Financial*
- 401(k) with 4% company match
- Annual equity refresh grants

*Workspace*
- Latest MacBook Pro or high-end Windows/Linux workstation (your choice)
- Pixel and Samsung devices for testing
- $1,500 home office setup allowance
- Flexible hybrid (2 days in SF office)
- Additional Android devices as needed for testing

## Engineering Culture

**How we work:**
- Two-week sprints with reasonable scope
- Engineers own features end-to-end
- Quality over speed (we don't ship broken experiences)
- Thorough code review with constructive feedback
- Designers and engineers collaborate closely

**What we value:**
- Craft and attention to detail
- User empathy and product thinking
- Continuous improvement
- Learning from each other
- Work-life balance (no crunch culture)

**Android Team specifics:**
- Weekly Android guild meeting for knowledge sharing
- Dedicated time for Compose exploration
- Input on architecture and tooling decisions
- Regular device testing sessions with diverse hardware
- Direct relationship with Google (Play Console partner, I/O access)

## Interview Process

Our interview process typically takes 2 weeks. We respect your time and provide feedback at every stage.

- **Step 1: Recruiter Screen** (30 min)
  Background discussion, role overview, and your questions.

- **Step 2: Technical Phone Screen** (45 min)
  Kotlin fundamentals, Android concepts, and discussion of your past projects with an Android engineer.

- **Step 3: Take-Home Project** (3-4 hours, paid $300)
  Build a small Android feature that demonstrates your coding style. We provide clear requirements and evaluate code quality, not completion speed.

- **Step 4: On-Site/Virtual** (3.5 hours)
  - Architecture Discussion (60 min): Design an Android app architecture
  - Code Review (45 min): Review code together and discuss your take-home
  - UI Implementation (60 min): Build a UI component (pair programming, not whiteboard)
  - Team Fit (45 min): Meet potential teammates

- **Step 5: Hiring Manager** (30 min)
  Career goals, growth opportunities, and final questions.

## How to Apply

Submit your resume and optionally include:
- Links to apps you've built (Play Store or Firebase App Distribution)
- GitHub profile with Android projects
- Technical blog posts or conference talks
- Description of a feature you're proud of building

We review every application and respond within 5 business days.

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*[Company] is an equal opportunity employer. We believe diverse teams build better products and actively seek candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. If you're excited about this role but don't meet every qualification, we still encourage you to apply—we value potential and growth mindset alongside experience.*