Senior Software Engineer - Mobile Platform

Skydio•San Mateo, CA

About The Position

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors to first responders, soldiers in battlefield scenarios and beyond. About the Role: When a drone understands its surroundings, it can respond to a much richer set of input commands, allowing a user with a mobile device to communicate with the drone at a much higher level than before. We're looking for a Senior Android Engineer who is excited to help architect, develop, and polish native mobile applications for the most powerful real-world tool of our generation. You will own critical subsystems that bridge our C++ autonomy engine with the Android application layer, and mentor other engineers on NDK and systems-level best practices. About the Team: Skydio's Autonomy Engine is powered by an extensive C++ and Python codebase, which our mobile applications leverage to build user-facing features. Native Android code is primarily written in Kotlin, with some legacy Java classes. The mobile team owns the full stack from native C++ libraries through JNI bindings to the Kotlin UI layer.

Requirements

3-5+ years professional software engineering experience, with substantial work in both C++ and Android (Kotlin/Java)
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)
Track record of shipping mobile apps that integrate with hardware, IoT devices, or robots
Proficiency in Linux development environments

Nice To Haves

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

Responsibilities

Architect and build advanced drone control features that integrate low-latency communication between device, drone, and cloud
Design and improve video streaming, augmented reality, and real-time telemetry rendering on Android
Own the JNI/NDK layer that bridges our C++ autonomy libraries with the Kotlin application
Drive technical decisions on performance-critical paths (memory management, threading, GPU utilization)
Work cross-functionally with autonomy, firmware, cloud, and product teams to deliver best-in-class drone control applications
Mentor engineers and raise the bar on native Android and C++ code quality