Senior Software Engineer - Mobile Platform

San Mateo · USD 190,000-250,000 / year · 5+ years experience · Full-time · Hybrid · Posted Oct 8, 2026

At a glance

We're looking for a Senior Android Engineer who thinks like a product engineer — someone who doesn't just write code, but understands why it matters to the operator holding the controller.
You'll work at the intersection of Skydio's autonomous flight engine, connected cloud services, and physical controller hardware to build products that give drone operators superpowers.
From dispatch-to-flight workflows to real-time situational awareness to mission planning, you'll shape how people interact with the most advanced autonomous drones in the world.

Design intuitive, high-performance operator interfaces for real-time drone control, video streaming, and mission management
Work cross-functionally with autonomy, firmware, cloud, and product teams to translate complex system capabilities into simple, reliable user experiences
Architect and build product features that bridge our C++ autonomy engine, Android application layer, and cloud services — owning the full vertical from native libraries through JNI/NDK to the Kotlin UI
Build and leverage AI-powered agentic workflows to accelerate engineering velocity — from automated testing and code generation to intelligent developer tooling
Champion the product engineer mindset: deeply understand operator needs, think end-to-end from hardware to cloud, and own outcomes — not just outputs
Mentor engineers and raise the bar on software quality, system design, and user-centric thinking

5+ years professional software engineering experience with Android AOSP with substantial work Android (Kotlin/Java) and some work in C++ is preferred.
Deep experience with the Android NDK and JNI — you've built and debugged native libraries that ship in production Android apps
Proficiency in Kotlin and the modern Android ecosystem (Coroutines, Jetpack/Architecture Components, Gradle)
Previous experience with one or more graphics APIs such as Vulkan, OpenGL ES, or Metal
Strong debugging and profiling skills across the native/managed boundary (ASan, Perfetto, Android Studio profilers)
Experience with low-latency network communication (UDP, WebRTC, or custom protocols)
Proficiency in Linux development environments

Have shipped mobile apps that integrate with IoT devices or robots
Experience with Bazel build system would be great
AOSP or Android platform/framework-level experience
Familiarity with video codecs (H.264/H.265), camera pipelines, or real-time media processing

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