Android Team Lead

About IMG.LY

We’re a ~50-person remote company building creative editing infrastructure used by Freepik, HP, and Adobe at scale. Our mission is to make high-quality design and video editing accessible everywhere. The work spans real-time rendering, video codecs, and cross-platform SDKs — and we’re growing the team that makes it possible.

How we work

• Remote-first across Europe with an async-by-default culture
• Meetings only when necessary; everything else is written
• We ship fast without cutting corners on quality
• Real decision-making authority, with high accountability

The role

You’ll own our Android CreativeEditor SDK as both a technical leader and a hands-on engineer. This isn’t a hands-off management role — deep code involvement is expected.

• Set technical direction and quality standards for the Android SDK
• Design Kotlin and Compose APIs that external developers love to use
• Coach a small Android team to ship faster without sacrificing craft
• Evaluate ecosystem shifts (Compose releases, Play Store policies, dependencies)
• Provide early, direct feedback to engineers
• Push decisions to the people implementing them

Who you are

Technical

• Deep Kotlin and Android expertise; shipped production apps or SDKs
• Comfortable making architectural decisions and defending them
• Strong opinions on Jetpack Compose
• Understand API design from the perspective of the developers who consume it

Leadership

• Prior engineering leadership experience — or clearly ready for it
• Deliver feedback that resonates; know when to coach vs. give space
• Celebrate wins; reflect on mistakes without blame
• Measure success by team effectiveness, not personal credit

Communication & judgment

• Explain technical concepts across disciplines (engineers, designers, product)
• Write clear documentation
• Justify decisions in business terms
• Give honest feedback about quality standards
• Prefer thoughtful, kind colleagues to “rockstars”

AI fluency

• Proficient with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot
• Write prompts that get you ~80% of the way; verify and test the rest
• Apply AI strategically across prototyping and implementation
• Keep critical judgment about what to accept, modify, or reject

Bonus

• Published Android libraries or SDKs
• Deep Gradle and build-system expertise
• Native integration experience (NDK / JNI)
• Strong UI/UX instincts
• Open source contributions

What we offer

• Competitive salary
• 25 days vacation
• Premium equipment (MacBook)
• Remote flexibility plus quarterly team events
• Annual company retreat (past trips: Portugal, Montenegro, Turkey, Spain)
• Monthly co-working allowance
• Conference and professional development budget
• Germany: direct contracts; other EU: DEEL with equivalent benefits

Interview process

1. 30-minute initial chat
2. Technical discussion
3. Take-home assignment (4-5 hours max, design-focused)
4. Technical review with future colleagues and the team lead
5. Team meeting