Principal Engineer Android

This role is offered on a UK employment contract. Candidates must be based in the UK as we are unable to support remote working from outside the country due to local employment and tax legislation.

This is the Principal-level technical authority for Deltatre's Android Product Engineering team operating on AXIS and DIVA.

This is a senior individual-contributor role, as the Principal Engineer leads through technical expertise, domain knowledge, and strategic influence. Your authority is technical, exercised through architectural decisions, code review, and the way you raise the standard around you.

You will partner with the Technical Director to define long-term Android architectural direction across the product portfolio, set engineering standards, and act as the deep technical authority across multiple Android subsystems. The work spans architectural integrity, modernisation of the Android stack, and influencing how other Android engineers think about quality at scale.

• Partner with the Technical Director to define long-term Android architectural direction, technical standards, and technology choices
• Own the architectural integrity and scalability of the Android platform across products — system design, integration patterns, data architecture
• Evaluate emerging Android technologies and propose adoption strategies aligned with product and business goals
• Drive technical innovation and continuous improvement within the Android engineering function
• Set the bar for engineering quality through code and design reviews, mentorship, and example
• Define and promote best practices in Android development — CI/CD, testing, monitoring, documentation
• Guide teams in resolving complex Android-specific technical challenges, balancing short-term delivery needs with long-term sustainability

• Act as the technical authority within the Android domain, across multiple subsystems and products
• Develop deep domain knowledge of the Android ecosystem at Deltatre's scale
• Ensure consistency in Android design and implementation practices across teams

• Collaborate with Product Managers, Designers, Tech Leads, and other stakeholders to align Android technical and product roadmaps
• Influence and mentor Lead Engineers and senior Android developers across the organisation
• Participate in high-level planning and decision-making with senior engineering and product leaders

You operate at the level where architecture becomes a question of judgement, not just technique. You make Android platform decisions that hold up over years, document them clearly, and bring other engineers along with you. You are credible across multiple Android teams because you do the work and you say what you actually think — not because of your title.

• 8+ years' software engineering experience with at least 3 years at Principal, Lead, or Architect level
• Substantial production experience with Kotlin and modern Android development, with working command of Java
• Deep architectural understanding of the Android platform — lifecycle, memory, threading, performance, accessibility
• Demonstrated experience leading architecture on cloud-connected, high‑availability consumer applications
• Substantial experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and how mobile apps interact with them
• Demonstrated technical leadership without people management — code quality governance, mentorship, architectural decision authority
• Comfortable communicating complex Android technical topics to non‑technical stakeholders
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and Dev Ops practices
• Background in OTT, video streaming, or B2C consumer apps at scale
• Experience with React Native or other cross‑platform mobile frameworks
• Familiarity with sports / media tech sector
• Experience with media‑specific concerns — video playback, DRM, encoding
• Experience mentoring senior engineers (not only juniors)
• Experience working in a global, distributed team environment

Principal Android engineering at Deltatre is technical authority without distance from the code. You are still the engineer who can sit down with a stuck team and work through…