Staff Software Engineer, Android

Archer; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Archer is seeking a Staff Android Engineer to own the Android app of a mature consumer product, align it with iOS, and push continuous improvements in a rapidly evolving AI-powered environment.

You will ship Play Store releases, handle crash triage, and optimize performance across a wide range of Android hardware. The role offers exposure to web apps and internal tools, with a strong emphasis on building first-version features in a collaborative, high-velocity team.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience delivering user-facing Android apps.
• Solid Kotlin experience and ability to reason about Compose.
• Experience shipping on Play Store and familiarity with iOS parity.
• Comfort with ambiguity and building first versions of features.

Responsibilities

• Own the Android app for a mature consumer product and drive feature parity with iOS.
• Ship releases, manage crashes, and optimize performance across devices.
• Collaborate across mobile, web, and internal tooling projects.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools as a standard practice.

Skills

Kotlin

Android

Swift familiarity

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Archer is a leader in the next-gen aerospace sector building an end-to-end advanced air mobility platform that delivers air taxis, unmanned aircraft systems ("UAS"), aviation-related physical artificial intelligence ("AI") solutions, and other technologies to customers worldwide across the commercial aerospace and defense sectors. Our sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members. Archer is best known for Midnight, our electric aircraft. This role isn't on that program. The AI Products Org builds consumer software for the general aviation industry. There's a lot we're not ready to talk about publicly yet, so this posting stays vague on purpose. What we can say: the products are real, they ship, and people use them every day. As the Staff Android Engineer, you'll own the Android app of a mature consumer product — one that's been featured in the app stores multiple times and has a real user base that opens it every day. The iOS and Android apps are close to feature parity, and in a couple of places Android is ahead. You'd own the Android side: new features, refinements, and keeping both platforms moving together as the product evolves.

What You’ll Do

• Own the Android app of a mature, production consumer product: new features, refinements, and keeping it in step with iOS as both evolve. You'll be reading Swift regularly, even if you never write it
• Make the parity-vs-platform-convention call constantly, and defend your reasoning
• Ship. Play Store releases, crash triage, performance on the long tail of Android hardware — the unglamorous parts are part of the job
• Work on new and different projects (mobile, web apps, internal tools) as opportunities come up across the org. This is where the generalist part of your skill set earns its keep
• Work the way this team works: AI-assisted development is the default here, not a novelty. We use Claude Code daily and expect you to be fluent with agentic coding tools — or to get fluent fast and honestly, we'll be able to tell which

What You Need

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, mostly on user-facing client software that shipped in the Play Store
• Bachelor's, or equivalent experience in Computer Science
• Solid Kotlin experience, and enough compose to have opinions about it
• Real 0→1 experience — you've built the first version of something, not just contributed to a long-lived codebase someone else stood up
• Comfort with ambiguity. If you need a fully scoped program before you can start, this won't be a fit.

Bonus Qualifications

• You can write Swift, not just read it
• Web frontend experience (React or similar)
• Full stack experience — useful here, but not required
• You've shipped in a regulated or safety-adjacent industry and know how that changes engineering culture

About The Team

AI Products is a roughly 100-person software org inside a company of aerospace engineers, and we expect to grow substantially over the next year. You get the resources and momentum of a real org, but the products themselves are early. If you want to hear more about what we're building before you apply, you can't. Apply, and we'll tell you plenty.

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Certain positions may be eligible for visa sponsorship.

Archer is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Archer Aviation does not engage with external recruiting agencies/individual recruiters with whom it does not have a prior written agreement. Archer reserves the right to make use of any unsolicited resumes that it receives and bears no responsibility for payment of any fees asserted from the use of unsolicited resumes. If you are a recruiting agency or individual recruiter wishing to do business with Archer, please reach out to [e-mail]. All employment processes are managed by the Archer People Team.