HIRING: Android Engineer in Tokyo (No Japanese Required)
What if you could improve how an entire organization builds Android applications?
We're partnering with one of Japan's leading consumer technology companies to find a Senior Android Engineer for its Mobile Enablement team.
Instead of focusing exclusively on individual product features, you'll work on the underlying architecture, development tools, shared components, and engineering workflows that support dozens of Android engineers.
With an application serving over 20 million users, you'll have the opportunity to influence Android development at scale while helping the organization adopt modern development practices, automation, and AI-powered engineering tools.
Quick Role Overview
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Position | Senior Software Engineer, Android (Mobile Enablement) |
| Annual Salary | ¥10M+ (negotiable based on experience and skills) |
| Location | Roppongi, Tokyo |
| Employment Type | Full-time |
| Work Hours | Full flextime (no core hours) |
| Language Requirements | English (B2 or above); Japanese optional |
| Primary Language | Kotlin |
| Android Frameworks | Jetpack Compose, Coroutines, Flow |
| Tools & Infrastructure | Gradle, GitHub Actions, GKE, Android Studio |
| AI Development Tools | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor |
| Primary Focus | Android architecture, platform engineering, developer experience, automation |
About the Company
Our client is one of Japan's most recognized consumer technology companies, operating a large-scale digital marketplace with more than 20 million users.
Its technology connects millions of people through a platform designed to make buying, selling, and exchanging value more accessible.
Behind its consumer-facing products is a substantial engineering organization working across mobile development, backend systems, machine learning, infrastructure, and product design.
As the company continues to evolve its technology ecosystem, it is investing in tools, infrastructure, and engineering practices that help developers work more efficiently.
One important part of this investment is its Mobile Enablement team.
About the Role: What Is Mobile Enablement?
A traditional Android engineer typically works within a product team, building features that users interact with directly.
A Mobile Enablement Engineer takes a broader perspective.
Rather than only developing individual features, you'll focus on improving the systems, architecture, and tools that allow other Android engineers to build those features.
Think of it this way:
Product Android Engineers build the experiences that users interact with.
Mobile Enablement Engineers build and improve the foundations that make those experiences possible.
Your work will involve maintaining shared SDKs, improving build pipelines, designing scalable architecture, automating repetitive processes, and establishing best practices across the Android engineering organization.
You'll also periodically collaborate directly with product engineers on feature development, helping you understand their challenges and develop practical solutions.
The goal is to make Android development faster, more reliable, and easier to scale.
What You'll Be Working On
1. Building and Improving Android Platform Architecture
You'll take ownership of core Android platform components, including shared modules, SDKs, and architectural foundations used by multiple engineering teams.
Your responsibilities will include:
Designing scalable, maintainable Android architecture.
Developing and maintaining shared libraries and SDKs.
Improving architectural consistency across different teams.
Leading technical discussions and influencing engineering standards.
Supporting the adoption of modern Android technologies and development patterns.
Rather than solving technical challenges for a single application feature, you'll develop solutions that can benefit the entire mobile engineering organization.
2. Improving Application Performance and Reliability
When an application serves millions of users, even small improvements in performance can have a significant impact.
You'll work on optimizing the underlying Android experience, including:
Reducing application startup times.
Improving memory usage and resource efficiency.
Identifying and resolving stability issues.
Improving compatibility across Android devices and OS versions.
Implementing performance monitoring and optimization practices.
Your goal will be to help deliver a reliable, responsive mobile experience while ensuring the platform remains scalable as product requirements evolve.
3. Enhancing Developer Experience and Automation
One of the team's primary objectives is to reduce friction in the Android development lifecycle.
You'll help engineers spend less time managing repetitive processes and more time building high-quality products.
This includes:
Improving Gradle build performance and tooling.
Enhancing CI/CD workflows and automated testing.
Streamlining release management processes.
Automating repetitive engineering tasks.
Improving documentation, development standards, and internal workflows.
These improvements can have an organization-wide impact, helping dozens of engineers develop, test, and release features more efficiently.
4. Exploring AI-Powered Development Workflows
AI-assisted software development is becoming an increasingly important part of modern engineering.
In this role, you'll have the opportunity to explore how AI-powered tools can improve the Android development process.
The team is working with technologies such as:
Claude Code: AI-assisted coding and engineering workflows.
Codex: AI-powered development assistance and automation.
Cursor: AI-integrated development environments.
You'll help identify practical opportunities to integrate these tools into development workflows, reduce repetitive work, and improve engineering productivity.
This is particularly interesting if you want to help shape how AI is adopted across a large engineering organization rather than only using it for your own development tasks.
5. Driving Cross-Team Technical Initiatives
Because Mobile Enablement supports multiple engineering teams, collaboration is central to the role.
You'll work closely with Android engineers, backend developers, infrastructure specialists, machine learning engineers, and product teams.
You'll also be expected to:
Lead technical initiatives involving multiple teams.
Build alignment around architecture and engineering decisions.
Establish engineering guidelines and best practices.
Mentor junior and mid-level engineers.
Translate complex technical challenges into practical solutions.
This makes the position particularly suitable for experienced engineers who enjoy combining hands-on development with technical leadership.
The Technology Stack
The team works with a modern Android development ecosystem:
| Area | Technologies |
|---|---|
| Programming Language | Kotlin |
| UI Development | Jetpack Compose, Android Views |
| Asynchronous Programming | Kotlin Coroutines, Flow |
| Architecture | MVVM, MVI, Clean Architecture and other modern patterns |
| Build Systems | Gradle, Develocity |
| Development Environment | Android Studio |
| APIs & Data | Protocol Buffers |
| CI/CD | GitHub Actions |
| Infrastructure | Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) |
| AI Development | Claude Code, Codex, Cursor |
Experience with every technology is not necessarily required, but a strong foundation in Kotlin, Android development, and software architecture will be essential.
What Skills and Experience Do You Need?
Required Qualifications
The team is looking for an experienced Android engineer who can take ownership of complex technical challenges and work effectively across different engineering teams.
You should have:
Strong professional experience developing Android applications using Kotlin.
Solid knowledge of Android SDK, Jetpack libraries, and Jetpack Compose.
A strong understanding of mobile architecture patterns such as MVVM, MVI, MVC, or Clean Architecture.
Experience working with large Android applications or complex codebases.
Experience integrating backend APIs and handling asynchronous programming.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
The ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and collaborate with different stakeholders.
A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
English communication skills at approximately CEFR B2 level or above.
A genuine interest in building high-quality, user-facing mobile products is also important.
Preferred Qualifications
The following experience would help you stand out:
Working on mobile applications with millions of users.
Optimizing Android performance, startup times, or memory usage.
Using crash analysis, instrumentation, observability, and performance metrics.
Experience with Kotlin Multiplatform or Android Baseline Profiles.
Building or maintaining shared Android libraries, SDKs, or platform components.
Improving CI/CD pipelines, Gradle builds, automated testing, or release processes.
Leading technical initiatives across several engineering teams.
Contributing to open-source Android projects or the broader Android developer community.
Mentoring engineers and establishing technical best practices.
You don't necessarily need to have worked in a dedicated Mobile Enablement team before. Experienced Android engineers with strong architectural knowledge and an interest in platform-level development may also find this an attractive next step.
Language Requirements
One of the advantages of this opportunity is that Japanese language proficiency is not required.
The company offers an international engineering environment where English is the primary language for technical discussions, collaboration, and day-to-day communication.
English: Required (CEFR B2 or above)
You should be comfortable communicating with engineers and stakeholders in English.
You'll need to participate in technical discussions, explain architectural decisions, and collaborate across multiple teams.
Native-level English is not required, but you should be able to communicate complex technical concepts clearly.
Japanese: Optional
Japanese proficiency is not a requirement for this position.
Japanese skills can be beneficial, but they are not essential for successfully performing the role.
This makes the opportunity particularly attractive if you're an experienced Android engineer looking to advance your career in Japan without being limited by Japanese language requirements.
Why Consider This Opportunity?
1. Make an Impact Beyond Individual Features
Your work won't be limited to a single product feature or development team.
By improving shared architecture, build systems, and engineering workflows, you'll have the opportunity to influence how dozens of Android engineers work.
2. Work on a Platform Used by More Than 20 Million People
You'll tackle engineering challenges that come with supporting a large-scale consumer application.
Performance, reliability, scalability, and maintainability are especially important at this level.
3. Help Shape an AI-Native Engineering Environment
You'll be able to explore emerging AI development tools and help determine how they can be integrated into engineering workflows.
For engineers interested in the future of software development, this creates an opportunity to combine Android expertise with practical AI adoption.
4. Develop Your Technical Leadership
You'll work across multiple teams, influence architectural decisions, and contribute to technical standards used throughout the organization.
It's an opportunity to develop your influence as a senior engineer without necessarily moving into people management.
5. Work in an English-Speaking Engineering Environment
English is the required working language, while Japanese is optional.
This makes the position accessible to experienced international engineers in Japan who may not have business-level Japanese proficiency.
The company also offers full flextime without core hours, providing flexibility in how you organize your working day.
Who Would Be a Good Fit for This Role?
This position could be particularly interesting if you're currently working as a:
Senior Android Engineer who wants to move beyond feature development and influence broader architecture.
Android Platform Engineer who enjoys shared tooling, SDKs, infrastructure, and developer productivity.
Mobile Tech Lead who wants to stay hands-on while driving cross-team technical initiatives.
Android Engineer at a large consumer technology company who has experience navigating complex applications and scaling engineering systems.
Most importantly, you should enjoy solving technical challenges that affect other engineers as much as those that affect end users.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a traditional Android application development role?
Not exactly.
While you'll still work with Android applications and occasionally contribute to user-facing features, the primary focus is the underlying Android engineering ecosystem.
You'll work on platform architecture, shared components, developer tooling, automation, and engineering standards that support multiple product teams.
Do I need Japanese language skills?
No. Japanese is optional for this position.
English proficiency at approximately CEFR B2 level or above is required, as you'll need to communicate effectively with engineers and other stakeholders.
Will I still be writing code?
Yes.
This is a hands-on senior engineering role involving architecture, implementation, testing, and maintaining platform-level solutions.
You'll also participate in technical discussions, lead initiatives, and mentor other engineers.
Do I need previous platform engineering experience?
Previous experience with shared Android components, platform tooling, or large-scale engineering initiatives is preferred.
However, the role may also suit experienced Android engineers who have strong architectural knowledge and are interested in expanding their influence beyond individual features.
Will I have the opportunity to work with AI?
Yes.
The team is exploring tools such as Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor to improve development workflows and automate engineering processes.
This is an opportunity to help shape practical AI adoption within the mobile engineering organization.
What is the working arrangement?
The position is based in Roppongi, Tokyo, and offers full flextime with no core hours.
The precise remote-work and office-attendance arrangements should be confirmed during the recruitment process.
What does the interview process look like?
The company's engineering recruitment process generally includes:
Application screening.
Technical skill assessment, potentially using HackerRank or GitHub.
Interviews with relevant team members and stakeholders.
Reference checks around the final interview stage.
Final offer.
The exact number of interviews and assessment timing may vary.
