ROLE OVERVIEW

The Lead Android developer will be responsible for the strategic leadership of technical excellence in the field of Android application development. The Lead Android Developer will bring their extensive skills and experience to bear having already worked as a Lead or in a Senior capacity for a minimum of two years. 

The role is tasked with ensuring the planning, scoping and delivery of Android client projects to the highest quality. The Lead Android Developer brings passion for innovation, process, and technology to the agency and its client projects. Strong leadership and communication skills are required as the role includes pitching to clients and client management. The Lead Android Developer drives for excellence by continually assessing and optimising relevant development methodologies and approaches to maintain the agency’s production of best-in-class work. The person will be a responsible, mature and positive individual with great communication skills who is adept at supporting less experienced team mates and working in partnership with the wider project team.

PROJECT LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES

• Contributing to scoping, planning and estimating sessions to build products as per agreed specification on time and on budget
• Responsible for producing detailed technical documentation including pitch responses, technical write ups and solutions documents.
• Ensuring that changes in scope are well communicated and planned for.
• Responsible for mentoring other team members.
• Early identification (and mitigation) of risk where required.
• Supporting the troubleshooting of live project issues out of hours when required.

INTERNAL & STRATEGIC RESPONSIBILITIES

• Assisting the Director of Technology by providing ownership and leadership on projects with minimal oversight.
• Promoting the cause of Android Development within the agency via presentations and demos.
• Contributing to the refinement of in-house development processes and best practices including departmental standards.
• Always looking to deliver cost savings and process optimisation through the ongoing search for an improved and value oriented management toolset.

LINE MANAGEMENT

• Direct line management of the Android development team to include roles & responsibilities, expectation setting to achieve effective planning, running and delivering projects.
• Supporting the team through guidance, training, example-setting, motivation, troubleshooting assistance, feedback and project oversight. 
• Educates and mentors staff ensuring that the team follows agreed development related company processes & procedures.
• Conducting the staff appraisal process.
• Supporting the hiring process of new team members.

PERSONAL SKILLS

• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to independently manage and lead meetings, workshops and project playbacks to senior stakeholders.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Forward planning and strategic thinker.
• Calm under pressure and ability to lead others in the same manner.
• Able to clearly present the relative merits and associated risks of any proposed

TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES

• Responsible for implementing key strategies to reduce technical debt within the codebases and ensuring that these strategies are followed by more junior members of the team.
• Technical authority for all major architectural decisions within the codebases with a view to improving longevity and ongoing maintainability.
• Expert knowledge of video on demand technologies and workflows, including an understanding of streaming technologies & protocols and player technologies (including advert insertion).
• A key point of contact for strategic technical business initiatives & directives.
• A keen focus on producing clean, well documented and robust code.
• An expert understanding of code versioning using git.
• Strong experience of software testing practices and principles, including unit testing.
• A good working understanding of the concepts of continuous delivery pipelines and their implementation.
• Experienced with evaluating and integrating 3rd party libraries as per project requirements.

Additional technologies include:

Including many of the Android support libraries.