Lead Software Engineer - Android

Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance.
Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.

Here, you’ll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.

If you’re energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we’d be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET’S GO!

• Drive the architectural direction and design of Android applications
• Establish best practices for coding, testing, and deployment
• Evangelize new tools, frameworks, and processes for continued innovation and development efficiency
• Prepare architectural diagrams and technical specifications for the engineering team to deliver high quality, maintainable software
• Lead architectural discussions around feature development and software development best practice
• Involvement in performance and playback optimizations, overall app stability and profiling

• Design, develop, test, and deploy new solutions as well as maintaining, integrating and improving existing solutions using modern technologies and industry best practices
• Ensure robust performance, responsiveness, and quality of applications, troubleshooting and debugging as needed

• Leverage AI-driven coding assistants like Copilot, Cursor, or Claude as a core component of the daily engineering lifecycle, including architectural design, implementation, and refactoring
• Partner with technical leadership to establish and optimize safe, high-impact practices for utilizing AI tools within the development team
• Drive cross-functional initiatives to integrate LLM and ML capabilities into product features, such as advanced search, discovery, and personalized content understanding

• Mentor mid- and senior-level engineers, sharing technical expertise and guiding professional growth
• Participate in code reviews to maintain code quality and consistency across the team

• Work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineering teams to clarify requirements
• Coordinate with backend services and APIs to ensure seamless integration and feature delivery

• Enhance software development processes and policies, driving continuous improvement in code quality, development speed, and overall team productivity
• Stay current with emerging Android technologies, libraries, and trends, recommending their adoption where beneficial

• Partner closely with the Android Engineering Manager on development strategies
• Ensure the application is highly responsive and performant
• Safeguard against production incidents
• Enable engineers to deliver mission-critical features and enhancements
• Identify technical risks and potential bottlenecks, proposing solutions to mitigate them

• Proficient in Kotlin and Java, with a solid understanding of the Android SDK and different Android versions
• Deep knowledge of Architecture Patterns and Material Design (e.g., MVVM, MVI, Clean Architecture, Compose UI)
• Experience using Gradle and Android Studio
• Experience following and implementing software design patterns

• Proven ability to design scalable, high-performing, and secure Android applications
• Experience integrating complex RESTful APIs and third-party libraries

• Solid experience in writing unit tests, UI tests, and automated tests using frameworks like JUnit, Espresso, and others
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions)

• Ability to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, including memory leaks, slow rendering, and network inefficiencies
• Skilled in using performance profiling and optimizations (e.g., Android Profiler, Leak Canary)

• Ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to engineers, stakeholders, and executives
• Strong mentoring skills, with a track record of developing and inspiring high-performing teams

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)
• 7+ years of professional software development experience, with at least 6 years focused on Android development
• Demonstrated history of leading and delivering multiple large-scale Android projects in a production environment with multiple scrum teams in an agile process
• Proven track record of architectural ownership and driving technical decisions
• You should have strong interpersonal skills. You will need to facilitate conversations with business partners. This includes discussions during project definition, business requirements definition, and functional design sessions.
• Eye for quality and user experience
• Translate business objectives into software requirements

• Hands on software development on the Android/Android TV/Amazon/Amazon Fire TV platform
• Have shipped one or more apps to the Google Play and/or Amazon app store
• Experience working remotely with globally distributed and multiple interdisciplinary teams
• Experience working on Android projects with multi-module architecture
• Experience with assistive technologies such as JAWS/VoiceOver, ZoomText, and keyboard-only input methods
• Experience evaluating front-end code against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
• Experience in creating accessible front-end designs. This includes using TalkBack properties in XML, like labelFor and contentDescription. It also involves making TalkBack announcements, scaling text dynamically, and ensuring responsive design.

• Hands-on, daily use of AI coding assistants such as Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent, with a clear sense of what these tools are good and bad at
• Comfort writing effective prompts, structuring context, and evaluating AI-generated diffs critically before they land in the codebase
• Working understanding of LLMs, embeddings, retrieval, and prompt engineering, enough to design client integrations and reason about latency, cost, and failure modes
• You should have useful experience in shipping or prototyping at least one product feature that uses machine learning (ML) or large language models (LLM). This could include features such as search, ranking, personalization, content understanding, or in-app assistants.
• Judgment about responsible AI use: privacy, IP, attribution, and when a human review gate is required

• Experience with Video Streaming (HLS / MPEG-DASH)
• Experience working with ExoPlayer
• Widevine DRM knowledge

Paramount+, a direct-to-consumer digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming service from Paramount Global, combines live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. The premium streaming service features an expansive library of original series, hit shows and popular movies across every genre from world-renowned brands and production studios, including BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and the Smithsonian Channel. The service is also the streaming home to unmatched sports programming, including every CBS Sports event, from golf to football to basketball and more, plus exclusive streaming rights for major sports properties, including some of the world’s biggest and most popular soccer leagues. Paramount+ also enables subscribers to stream local CBS stations live across the U.S. in addition to the ability to stream Paramount Streaming’s other live channels: CBSN for 24/7 news, CBS Sports HQ for sports news and analysis, and ET Live for entertainment coverage.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Hiring Salary Range: $156,800.00 - 235,200.00. 

The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education.  The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable,  as otherwise dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement. This position is bonus eligible.  

Skydance is an equal opportunity employer (EOE)

We embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability, you may request a reasonable accommodation during the job application and/or recruitment process. You can request reasonable accommodations by calling 212.846.5500 or by sending an email to [email protected]. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned.