Android Engineering Lead

Build great technology that improves millions of lives.

Overview

Simprints builds innovative technology aimed to help some of the world's most vulnerable and marginalised populations access essential services. We work to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development, making sure that every vaccine, every dollar, every public good reaches the people who need them most. We design and develop both hardware and software by applying modern tools and pioneering technology in new, challenging contexts where there is little to no internet connectivity. Simprints is currently on track to help over 1.4 million people access critical services by 2021.

We are looking for an Android-focused engineering lead to join our growing tech team, working on either our core Simprints ID platform or specific projects. You will be responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of Simprints applications and their integrations, both with our internal back-end services and with external data collection applications. You will work on an agile, collaborative team with a commitment to clean code and robust design, along with a strong culture of continuous learning and improvement. You will help the project management team assess feature feasibility and create a plan of action. If building technology for global health sounds exciting, we want to meet you! 

Responsibilities

• Design technical infrastructure to help Simprints scale to support projects all over the world

• Team with other Android engineers to write robust code that is easy to test and maintain, and runs reliably in challenging settings

• Work on cross-functional projects by collaborating with back-end engineers, data analysts and project managers

• Mentor junior engineers by guiding them through code reviews and making design decisions

• Lead a small to medium team (2-5 engineers) and assess risks

• Work close with project management to establish timelines and allocate resources

• Participate in interviews and support hiring of new engineers

• Create specification documents that outline designed solutions and a plan of action to achieve them

Minimum qualifications

• Deep understanding of the Android SDK with at least 5 years of experience building, integrating, testing, and supporting Android applications for mobile and tablet devices

• Solid understanding of the full software development lifecycle including application architecture design

• Experience working within a team with a focus on code quality, where testing, code reviews, and continuous integration are the norm

• Working knowledge of Kotlin (our code base is written entirely in Kotlin)

• Familiarity with third-party libraries like Coroutines and Koin

• Experience with Android Jetpack, especially Architecture Components (ViewModel, LiveData, Room, WorkManager)

Bonus points

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related field

• Familiarity in working within a culture that incorporates radical candour, 360 feedback, and other techniques to build a high-trust team

• Desire to become people manager

• Experience building applications for offline or low-connectivity settings

Why Simprints?

• Use the latest technologies:

  • Languages: Kotlin

  • Libraries: Jetpack, Coroutines, Koin, WorkManager

  • Testing: Mockk, Firebase Test Lab

  • Cloud: Firebase, BigQuery, Cloud Functions

  • Other tools: Bitbucket Pipelines, Jira

• Make a positive impact on millions of the most vulnerable people in the world

• Work in a team of dedicated and talented engineers committed to writing high quality code

• Opportunities to see our tech in action by joining our deployments around the world: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, or Zimbabwe just to name a few

• Incredible perks

  • Unlimited paid time off. Last year, the average Simprints employee took a total of 31 days off (annual leave plus UK bank holidays), an increase from 26 days two years ago

  • Truly flexible working hours. More efficient late at night? That’s fine by us, start after lunch. We are looking for people who get the job done, not for people who get the job done between 9am and 5pm

  • A generous Eduprints budget to spend on individual learning. In the past, Simprints engineers have spent this on attending tech conferences, enrolling in a Udacity nanodegree, and all the books you could possibly read

  • Two ‘LEGO Days’ each quarter where you can work on any project you want. Past projects have ranged from exploring image processing techniques to building a LEGO train to deliver beer around the office

What to do next?

Traditional recruitment processes are open to subconscious bias (e.g. your name, where you studied, your past employers) that can lead to your candidacy being treated differently from others. This is why we’ve built a recruitment system that seeks to minimise bias as much as possible.

Once you fill out your details on our recruitment portal (start by submitting your email address through the link on the top right of the page), you will see a link to a small Assessment. This is untimed, but the average candidate takes 15 minutes to finish. Your answers will be anonymised and mixed with those from other candidates so we won't know anything about you other than the quality of your work. It's one way that we make sure that we get the best candidates, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, academic background, or any other factors that can bias hiring teams. While we cannot guarantee that every submission will result in an interview, expect to hear from us within a month.

For a detailed overview of what to expect during the hiring process, we've written up more info here.