Android Developer (Native, BLE / Connected Devices)

Location	Technopark, Trivandrum
Experience	8+ Years

About the Role

We are looking for a Native Android Developer to build and maintain mobile applications for a connected-device platform. The app connects to smart hardware over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and works closely with cloud services that handle access and permissions. You will own feature development, maintenance, and production support, working closely with Cloud, Firmware, DevOps, and QA teams to deliver releases on time.

Key Responsibilities

• Native Android development using Kotlin and the Android SDK
• Implement new features based on product requirements
• Maintain existing applications, including bug fixes and performance optimization
• Integrate with backend APIs (REST / GraphQL) and cloud services (AWS-hosted)
• Must have: Hands-on expertise with Android Bluetooth LE — BLE queue management, scanning and scan filtering, ciphering, GATT services/characteristics, and hardware communication protocols for smart devices
• Implement UI/UX following design specifications and Material Design guidelines
• Manage app store submission, builds, and release management
• Write unit and UI tests to minimize defects and reproduce intermittent issues
• Diagnose and resolve hard-to-reproduce production issues using analytics and crash data
• Conduct code reviews and maintain technical documentation
• Collaborate closely with the Cloud/Web team on API integration

Required Skills & Experience

Core Android & Language

• Expert-level native Android development (Kotlin, Android SDK)
• Strong command of both Jetpack Compose and the XML/View system, with sound judgment on when to use each; Material Design
• Concurrency: Coroutines and Flow (StateFlow / SharedFlow), structured concurrency; thread-safety and race-condition handling; approaches when coroutines are not available

Architecture & Design

• MVVM and Clean Architecture in depth; MVC vs MVVM trade-offs; Use Cases / domain layer and how to unit-test it
• Dependency Injection (Hilt / Dagger); designing reusable UI and common features shared across the project

Background Work & Performance

• Long-running and background operations: WorkManager, foreground/background services, Doze and app-standby behaviour; surviving process death mid-operation
• Efficient large-list rendering (RecyclerView, ListAdapter, Paging), including poor-network scenarios; diagnosing image-recycling / mismatch issues
• Reliable bulk database writes (e.g., large dataset inserts); caching strategies, eviction policies and TTL

APIs, Networking & Security

• RESTful and GraphQL integration (incl. GraphQL configuration and schema-change handling); awareness of SOAP trade-offs
• Where and how to configure timeouts; optimizing multiple / parallel API calls; response caching
• Token-based auth: JWT (payload/claims), refresh tokens and expiry handling, SSO, Cognito or similar
• Certificate / SSL pinning; secure credential storage

Data & Persistence

• Room (Entity / DAO / Database) and other persistence mechanisms; secure storage of sensitive data
• Handling data migration and integrity issues across app updates

BLE / Connected-Device Communication (core to the role)

• Hands-on Android BLE: full flow (scanning → connection → service discovery → communication → disconnection)
• BLE operation queue management and prioritization (incl. reprioritizing or discarding queued operations); scan filtering by Service UUID, device name and manufacturer data; GATT/ATT, services and characteristics
• MTU handling (max size, dynamic negotiation) and packet-size limits; Notify vs Indicate; response parsing; acknowledgements and reliable byte-level transfer; exponential retry and reconnection (incl. why to wait before reconnecting)
• Ciphering and encrypted device communication; OTA firmware-update considerations; awareness of vendor/OS differences (e.g., Pixel vs Samsung, Android vs iOS, Android 12 Bluetooth changes) and location-permission requirements (FINE vs COARSE)

Notifications, Analytics & Observability

• Push notifications (FCM): data vs notification messages, triggering, reliability trade-offs and use cases; payload structure / parsing and resilience to backend payload changes
• Firebase Analytics (custom events, event tracking) and Crashlytics; which crash types go unreported and why; analytics- and log-driven debugging of elusive production issues
• Memory-leak detection (LeakCanary), including integration with CI/CD

Quality, Tooling & Delivery

• CI/CD pipelines for mobile (Fastlane, Gradle); modules across multiple repositories and multiple build types / flavors
• App distribution: Firebase App Distribution, Google Play Store
• Build / dependency tooling: Gradle, Android Studio, Maven
• Testing: JUnit, Espresso, Kaspresso; a clear view of meaningful coverage and which layers to test
• Localization implementation and management (incl. tooling such as Phrase); awareness of Android/iOS localization differences

Preferred / Nice to Have

• Experience with IoT / connected-device companion apps (strongly preferred)
• Experience with OTA firmware update flows
• A/B testing: implementation and rollout
• Google Maps integration; Fragments-based navigation
• Practical use of AI-assisted development tools in day-to-day workflow
• Good to have: B1 visa

Technical Screening Focus Areas

• Project walkthroughs — architecture decisions, individual contributions, and real production challenges and how they were resolved
• BLE end-to-end — flow, GATT and characteristics, MTU and packet size, Notify vs Indicate, reliable transfer and acknowledgements, queue prioritization, retry and reconnection, max simultaneous device connections
• Concurrency & background work — coroutines / Flow, thread-safety, race conditions, WorkManager, Doze, long-running operations that survive process death
• Architecture — MVC vs MVVM, Clean, Use Cases (and how to test them), Dependency Injection, reusability
• Performance — large-list efficiency, RecyclerView / ListAdapter, image recycling, bulk DB inserts, caching / eviction / TTL
• Networking & security — REST/GraphQL (config and schema changes, optimization), JWT and refresh tokens, SSL pinning, timeouts
• Persistence — Room, secure storage, data migration across app updates
• Supporting areas — FCM payloads and reliability, Crashlytics gaps, analytics-led debugging, code-review focus, localization, and unit-testing strategy