Senior Android Developer

Position Summary

Apium Swarm Robotics (ASR) is revolutionizing swarm autonomy software for air, surface, undersea, and ground vehicles operating across dual-use commercial and defense environments. Our systems are deployed on real platforms, tested in the field, and delivered to customers operating in complex, uncertain, and safety-critical conditions. We do not build research prototypes or slideware. Our software is integrated into real vehicles, tested in the field, and delivered to customers who depend on operational reliability, speed of execution, and mission relevance.

We prioritize performance over hype. ASR systems represent the next phase in autonomy: collaborative swarming. These are not like pre-programmed drones for light shows. We are creating real-time cooperative management that lets one operator control dozens to hundreds of vehicles in real-time with the ease of controlling a single vehicle. As such, this role requires comfort with responsibility, ambiguity, and operational accountability.

ASR seeks a senior Android developer to join our software team. The role targets an experienced mobile engineer capable of owning the operator-facing applications that pilots, ground crews, and tactical users rely on to plan, monitor, and command drone swarms in the field. Primary responsibilities include the design and development of GIS-rich planning and control applications that fuse map data, terrain models, and real-time vehicle telemetry into a single tactical picture on Android tablets and ruggedized mobile devices.

A core focus of this role is geospatial intelligence on the device: integrating and rendering GIS layers, consuming DTED (Digital Terrain Elevation Data) for elevation‑aware features such as line‑of‑sight, viewshed, and terrain following, and presenting all of it through interfaces that remain usable in direct sunlight, with gloved hands, and over intermittent tactical networks. The role also encompasses the implementation of low‑latency real‑time telemetry, command, and control pathways between Android applications and ASR’s ground station and onboard autonomy stack — including handling mesh radio links, and other constrained transports common in tactical environments.

Travel may be required for field testing and demonstrations, which will allow you to witness firsthand how your software performs as dozens of drones take flight. You will work closely with backend, autonomy, and field engineers, shipping features that go directly to operators and that you will see exercised in live demonstrations. Direct feedback from the field is expected to inform your roadmap, and your software will be a primary touchpoint between ASR and its end users.

• Design, build, and maintain Android applications that serve as ASR’s primary operator‑facing tools for swarm planning, monitoring, and tactical control.
• Integrate and render GIS data layers and DTED elevation models into intuitive map‑based mission‑planning interfaces.
• Implement real‑time telemetry, command, and control over UDP, TCP, Web Sockets, MQTT, or similar transports across mesh radios and cellular links.
• Collaborate across autonomy, backend, and field teams to ship features grounded in real operational use, and support field exercises and customer demonstrations.

• 7+ years of professional Android development experience, primarily in Kotlin (Java acceptable as a secondary language).
• Strong proficiency in the modern Android stack including Jetpack components, coroutines, and lifecycle‑aware architecture.
• Hands‑on experience integrating and rendering GIS data on mobile, including map tiles, vector overlays, and coordinate systems such as WGS
  84, MGRS, and UTM.
• Demonstrated experience consuming DTED (Digital Terrain Elevation Data) for elevation‑aware features such as line‑of‑sight, terrain following, or viewshed analysis.
• Working knowledge of Android mapping libraries such as osmdroid, Map Libre, Mapbox, or the Google Maps SDK.
• Familiarity with georeferenced raster handling, map projections, and coordinate transformations.
• Experience implementing real‑time, low‑latency data…