Lead Android Developer

About the Company:

Our client is an established, profitable product company in the fintech space, serving a large international user base with strong security and regulatory credentials. This is a product company with a real engineering culture and genuine ownership - not an agency or outsourcing shop.

About the Role:

Our client is hiring their first Lead Android Developer. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You write Kotlin every day AND set the company's Android engineering standard. You own the architecture, CI/CD, release pipeline, and security bar.

This is not a pure management role and not just a stronger IC. There are no formal direct reports - you earn influence through expertise and mentorship. Split is roughly 90% hands-on coding, 10% technical leadership.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the Android technical roadmap , architecture, and engineering standards from scratch
• Write production Kotlin daily using Jetpack Compose, Coroutines & Flow
• Own the full Google Play lifecycle: A pp signing, keystore management, release tracks, Play Console
• Set up and improve Android CI/CD (GitLab CI, Bitrise, or Fastlane)
• Enforce Android security standards: Keystore, EncryptedSharedPreferences, biometric auth, root detection, SSL pinning
• Lead code reviews , set the PR quality bar, and mentor the Android team
• Represent Android in cross-functional work with Product, Design, Backend, and QA
• Own incidents and drive them to resolution end-to-end

What We Expect:

Must-have:

• 6+ years of commercial Android development in Kotlin: Idiomatic, not Java-in-Kotlin
• Proven technical leadership: Setting standards, driving architecture, raising the team's bar
• Deep Kotlin mastery: Coroutines, Flow, sealed classes, extension functions, DSLs
• Jetpack Compose in production: Real screens shipped, state management, theming, performance optimization
• Strong XML/View system foundation: ConstraintLayout, RecyclerView, custom views alongside Compose
• Architectural patterns at depth: MVVM + Clean Architecture; understands MVI trade-offs
• Jetpack suite ownership: ViewModel, StateFlow, Navigation, Room, WorkManager
• Dependency injection: Hilt/Dagger - set up the DI graph for a real multi-module project
• Networking: Retrofit + OkHttp, interceptors, token refresh, retry logic, error handling strategies
• Android security: EncryptedSharedPreferences, Android Keystore, biometric auth, root detection, SSL pinning
• Android CI/CD: GitLab CI, Bitrise, or Fastlane - has built or significantly improved a pipeline
• Google Play lifecycle: App signing, keystore management, release tracks, Play Console - full ownership
• Testing culture: JUnit, Mockk, Espresso or Compose testing - writes testable code and enforces it in review
• Code review leadership: Sets PR quality bar, gives actionable feedback, establishes standards others follow
• Active mentorship with measurable outcomes: Can describe specific developers and improvements
• Cross-functional communication: Works effectively with Product, Design, Backend, QA
• Ownership mindset: Drives problems to resolution end-to-end without being managed
• Languages: English(At least B2) for PRs and architecture proposals

Nice-to-have:

• Domain experience: Fintech, payments, or banking mobile apps
• KYC SDK integration (Sumsub, Onfido or similar) on Android in production
• Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile: Exposure or hands-on experience
• Performance profiling with Android Studio Profiler: Identified and fixed real production bottlenecks
• Payment SDK integration at Android level (Checkout.com, Stripe, or equivalent)
• Detekt, SonarQube, or static analysis tooling: Enforced across a codebase
• Real-time data: WebSocket or SSE for live prices, order status, or market feeds
• Experience interviewing: Participating in or leading Android technical hiring interviews
• Firebase suite: Analytics, Crashlytics, Remote Config, A/B testing — set up and owned team-wide
• Offline-first or sync-heavy mobile architecture experience
• Multi-module Android architecture: Designed or migrated a project to feature modules
• AI tools in daily development (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, etc.)

How You Work:

• You write code every day and lead by example, not hierarchy
• You take full ownership of the Android platform, not just your tasks
• You make pragmatic decisions under uncertainty and commit
• You treat security and quality as non-negotiable
• You adapt fast and prefer low-bureaucracy, high-autonomy environments

What Does Success Look Like:

• First 30 days: Gets acquainted with the codebase, starts contributing, establishes the Android delivery pipeline, and understands team architecture, stack, and processes
• 90 days: Proposes an approach to documenting application architecture, actively participates in tech discussions and provides valuable, trusted input on development decisions
• 180 days: Demonstrates leadership, develops the engineers they lead, acts …