6 templates by level and engagement type: standard, junior, senior, contract, Android plus iOS, and the first mobile hire at a small business. Each one carries the FLSA classification, store account, and IP notes the generic versions skip. Copy or download as DOCX.
The first Android hire at a small company is almost always made by someone who cannot read Kotlin. That was true for me, and it is true for most of the founders and operations leads I talk to. You know what the app has to do. You have no way to tell whether the person in front of you can build it, and the job description you copied from a search result was written for a company with two hundred engineers.
The market is not small. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 1,693,800 people employed as software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers in 2024, projected that group to grow 15 percent through 2034, and expects about 129,200 openings a year over the decade. There is no separate federal occupation code for Android developers, which is the first sign that generic salary advice will not fit this hire.
At FirstHR we write hiring templates for companies without a recruiting function. The six below cover a standard mid-level role, a junior hire, a senior or lead, a real contract engagement, a combined Android and iOS role, and the hardest case of all: the first mobile developer at a business with no engineering team. Each carries the classification, account ownership, and intellectual property notes the generic versions leave out.
TL;DR
An Android developer job description should name the app, the stack, the team, the release cadence, and a salary range. Android developers usually qualify for the FLSA computer employee exemption, which requires either $684 per week or $27.63 per hour plus a genuine software development duty. Benchmark pay to software developers: a $135,980 national median (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
What an Android Developer Actually Owns
An Android developer builds, tests, and ships the software that runs on Android devices, and on a small team also owns the release process, the Google Play listing, and the crash and performance data that comes back afterward. The coding is the visible half. The release and store obligations are the half that surprises first-time employers.
What the role looks like in practice depends less on seniority than on what the app is to your business. A consumer product company and a plumbing company with a dispatch app both need an Android developer, and they should write almost nothing in common.
The app is the product
Consumer or SaaS company
The Android app is how customers experience the business, so crash rate and store rating are business metrics. Hire for release discipline and performance work, not only feature velocity. The posting should name the app and its scale.
The app supports the business
Retail, services, field work
The app books appointments, takes orders, or runs a crew. Nobody rates it in the store and nobody cares about architecture. Hire for reliability, integration with the systems you already run, and plain communication with non-engineers.
You build apps for clients
Agency or studio
Every project is a different codebase, a different client, and often a different client-owned store account. Hire for adaptability and estimation, and write the intellectual property terms into both the employment agreement and the client contract.
You have no app yet
First mobile hire
There is no codebase, no pipeline, and no one to review the work. This is the hardest version of the hire and the one most likely to be miscast as a contract gig. Use the first mobile hire template and budget for a real employee.
Write the Posting for the App You Have, Not the App You Read About
The fastest way to attract the wrong candidates is to describe a scale you do not operate at. If your app has four thousand users, three screens, and one API, say so. A developer who wants to own an entire product and talk to the owner directly is scanning for exactly that, and a posting padded with distributed systems language hides it. Small and specific beats large and generic every time, because the candidates you can actually retain are reading for fit, not for prestige.
What Belongs in an Android Developer Posting
A job description does four jobs at once: it sells the work, it filters unqualified applicants, it protects you legally, and it closes the candidate. Most Android postings do only the first two, which is why they attract volume and lose finalists at the offer stage.
The parts developers read first
What the app does and who uses it
Team size and who owns which part
The actual stack, named without hedging
Release cadence and how decisions get made
The parts that filter applicants
Years of shipped production Android work
Kotlin depth and the Jetpack libraries you use
Whether shipped apps are required or optional
On-call, release duty, and support expectations
The parts that protect you
FLSA classification stated on the posting
Intellectual property assignment mentioned up front
Company ownership of store accounts and signing keys
Equal opportunity statement
The parts that win the hire
A salary range, not a range you refuse to name
Remote policy and time zone expectations
Equipment, device budget, and tooling
A named person and a real timeline for the process
The omission that costs small companies the most is the salary range. Mobile developers compare offers across a wide band and screen postings without numbers out early, because a missing range usually means a low one. Our guide to writing a job description covers the general structure, and the hiring templates library has the other roles you will hire alongside this one.
6 Android Developer Job Description Templates to Download
Download all six as one file or copy them individually. Each follows the same structure: company overview, position summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications, a classification and compliance note, an equal opportunity statement, and how to apply. The bracketed fields are the only parts you need to change.
Download All 6 Android Developer Job Description Templates
Standard, junior, senior, contract, Android plus iOS, and first mobile hire. All in one download.
Android Developer (Standard)
Mid-level, existing app
The general role for a company that already ships an Android app, with feature work, testing, release duties, and the exempt classification stated.
Junior Android Developer
Entry-level, supervised
For a first engineering hire out of a bootcamp or a portfolio, with scoped work, a mentorship section, and an honest note on the classification line.
Senior / Lead Android Developer
Owns architecture
For the person who sets the standard: architecture, migrations, release ownership, mentoring, and the store account and IP questions that follow seniority.
Contract / Freelance
Fixed scope, fixed end date
A scope of work rather than a job posting, with deliverables, handover requirements, and the misclassification warning written in plain terms.
Mobile Developer (Android and iOS)
One person, two stores
For a small team that needs both platforms from one hire, covering the shared layer, the native gaps, and two sets of store credentials.
First Mobile Hire
Small business, no engineers
For a non-technical owner hiring their only developer, with a what-this-role-is-not section and the account control questions settled up front.
Template 1: Android Developer (Standard)
The general mid-level role for a company that already ships an Android app, with feature work, testing, release duties, and the exempt classification stated on the posting.
Android Developer Job Description (Standard)
ANDROID DEVELOPER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State] / Remote)
Reports to: [Engineering Manager / CTO / Head of Product]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: Exempt (computer employee; see classification note)
•[Play Billing, Firebase, push notifications, deep linking, WorkManager]
•Accessibility and localization experience
•Some iOS or backend familiarity
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE (read before posting)
An Android developer whose primary duty is the design, development, testing, or
modification of computer programs generally qualifies for the FLSA computer
employee exemption, which requires either a salary of at least $684 per week or
an hourly rate of at least $27.63. The exemption is about duties and pay
together, not the job title. Confirm your state rules as well: some states set a
higher salary floor or a different duties test than federal law. Put an
intellectual property assignment and a confidentiality agreement in the offer
package, and decide before day one who controls the Google Play Console account
and the signing keys. This is general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year, [equity], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and links to apps you
have shipped.
Template 2: Junior Android Developer
For an entry-level hire from a bootcamp or a portfolio, with scoped work, a mentorship section, and an honest note on where the classification line sits at junior pay.
For the person who sets the architecture and quality bar and owns releases end to end. If the same hire will lead a broader engineering team, the software engineer templates cover the wider scope.
Senior / Lead Android Developer Job Description
SENIOR / LEAD ANDROID DEVELOPER JOB DESCRIPTION
Company: __ ([City, State] / Remote)
Reports to: [CTO / VP Engineering / Head of Product]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: Exempt (computer employee; see classification note)
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year, plus [equity / bonus]
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] is hiring a Senior Android Developer to own the technical
direction of our Android application. The app has [number] users and [number]
years of history, and we need someone who can improve it while it keeps
shipping. You would [lead a team of number / be the senior voice on a small
team].
POSITION SUMMARY
The Senior Android Developer sets the architecture and quality bar for the
Android app, leads delivery of major features, mentors the rest of the mobile
team, and owns the release process end to end.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Own Android architecture decisions and document the reasoning behind them
•Lead delivery of [named initiatives: Compose migration, modularization,
offline mode, performance program]
•Set and enforce the testing, review, and release standards for the platform
•Mentor [number] developers through pairing, review, and technical planning
•Manage the Google Play Console: releases, staged rollouts, policy and data
safety declarations, store listing experiments
•Own crash rate, ANR rate, startup time, and app size as tracked metrics
•Partner with product and design on scope, sequencing, and what is feasible
•Interview and calibrate candidates for the mobile team
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number]+ years of Android development with meaningful time on production apps
at scale
•Deep Kotlin, coroutines and flows, and modern Jetpack libraries
•Demonstrated architecture work: modularization, dependency injection, a
migration you led from start to finish
•Experience owning releases in the Google Play Console
•A track record of raising other developers, not only shipping your own work
NICE TO HAVE
•Kotlin Multiplatform or a second mobile platform
•Performance and startup optimization at scale
•Experience with [Play Billing, ML on device, media, maps, IoT or wearables]
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
A senior Android developer clears the computer employee exemption duties test
comfortably, and at senior pay the salary threshold is not close. Two other
issues matter more at this level. First, intellectual property: get a written
assignment covering code, designs, and anything built on personal hardware, and
check your state law, because several states limit assignment of inventions
developed entirely on the employee's own time and equipment. Second, account
control: the Google Play Console owner account, the upload and signing keys, and
the store credentials should belong to the company, not to the individual, from
the first day. Recovering them later is slow and sometimes impossible. This is
general information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year, [equity], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume, shipped apps, and one
architecture decision you made that you would defend or reverse today.
A scope of work rather than a job posting: deliverables, acceptance criteria, an end date, handover requirements, and the misclassification warning written in plain language.
•Handover: documented build instructions, dependencies, and a walkthrough
recording, delivered before final payment
REQUIREMENTS
•Shipped Android applications you can show, ideally in [our category]
•Kotlin and [Jetpack Compose / the stack this codebase uses]
•Ability to work against our existing [API / design system / repository]
•Own equipment, own devices, and your own business insurance where applicable
•Availability of [hours] per week through [end date]
WHAT WE PROVIDE
•API access, design files, test accounts, and a staging environment
•A named point of contact and a [weekly] checkpoint
•Access to the Google Play Console under our company account, revoked at the
end of the engagement
CLASSIFICATION NOTE (read this before posting)
Calling someone a contractor does not make them one. Under the Fair Labor
Standards Act the question is economic reality: who controls the schedule, the
method, and the tools, whether the worker has an independent business and can
profit or lose on the engagement, how permanent the relationship is, and how
central the work is to your business. If your only Android developer works
your hours, on your machine, on your core product, indefinitely, that is an
employee wearing a contractor label, and the bill for getting it wrong includes
back overtime, taxes, and penalties. Several states apply a stricter ABC test
than federal law, and the state test governs state wage claims. Use a written
agreement with scope, term, IP assignment, and confidentiality. Issue Form
1099-NEC where required: the reporting threshold is $2,000 for payments made on
or after January 1, 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
HOW TO APPLY
Send your rate, availability, two shipped apps, and a short note on how you
would approach [deliverable 1] to __.
Template 5: Mobile Developer (Android and iOS)
For a small team that needs both platforms from one hire, covering the shared layer, the native gaps, and two sets of store credentials. Compare it with the full stack developer templates if the same person will also own the backend.
Mobile Developer Job Description (Android and iOS)
MOBILE DEVELOPER JOB DESCRIPTION (ANDROID AND iOS)
Company: __ ([City, State] / Remote)
Reports to: [Engineering Manager / CTO / Founder]
Employment type: Full-time
FLSA status: Exempt (computer employee; see classification note)
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year
ABOUT THIS ROLE
[Company Name] needs one mobile app on both platforms and one person to own it.
We are hiring a Mobile Developer to build and maintain our [product] app for
Android and iOS using [Kotlin Multiplatform / Flutter / React Native], with
native work where the shared layer is not enough.
POSITION SUMMARY
The Mobile Developer builds features once and ships them on both platforms,
handles the native code each store and platform still requires, and manages
releases in both the Google Play Console and App Store Connect.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Build and maintain shared features in [Flutter / React Native / Kotlin
Multiplatform]
•Write and maintain the native Android and iOS code the shared layer cannot
cover: permissions, push, in-app purchase, deep links, widgets
•Keep the two platforms at parity in behavior, not only in feature list
•Manage releases in the Google Play Console and App Store Connect, including
review submissions, privacy declarations, and staged rollouts
•Monitor crash rates and performance separately per platform
•Work with [design] on one design system that survives both platforms
•Own the mobile build pipeline and signing for both stores
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years shipping mobile apps, with production experience on both
Android and iOS
•Strong [Dart / TypeScript / Kotlin] and comfort dropping into Kotlin and
Swift when the shared layer runs out
•Apps live in both stores that we can install and use
•Experience with app review, rejections, and store policy on both sides
•Judgment about when a cross-platform approach is the wrong answer
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
The same computer employee exemption applies: primary duty of software design,
development, testing, or modification, plus a salary of at least $684 per week
or an hourly rate of at least $27.63. Two practical notes for a dual-platform
hire. Company-owned developer accounts matter twice over here, because you now
depend on two store accounts and two sets of signing credentials. And if you
hire this role remotely across state lines, you may create tax registration,
paid leave, and pay transparency obligations in the employee's state, so check
before the offer rather than after. This is general information, not legal
advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year, [equity], [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and both store links.
Template 6: First Mobile Hire at a Small Business
For a non-technical owner hiring their only developer, with a what-this-role-is-not section that prevents the most common mismatch, plus account control settled before the start date.
Android Developer Job Description (First Mobile Hire at a Small Business)
ANDROID DEVELOPER JOB DESCRIPTION (FIRST MOBILE HIRE)
Company: __ ([City, State] / Remote / Hybrid)
Reports to: [Owner / Founder / Operations Lead]
Employment type: Full-time [or part-time: state the hours]
FLSA status: Exempt (computer employee; see classification note)
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year
ABOUT [COMPANY NAME]
[Company Name] is a [industry] business in [City, State] with [number]
employees. Our customers use [describe how the app fits: booking, ordering,
field service, loyalty, member access], and the Android app is [our first / our
main] product for them. There is no engineering department yet. You would be it,
working directly with [owner / operations lead].
POSITION SUMMARY
The Android Developer builds and maintains the company's Android application end
to end, decides the technical approach with the owner, and keeps the app working
for real customers without a team to fall back on.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
•Build, release, and maintain the Android app end to end
•Choose and defend the technical approach with [owner / operations lead]
•Set up and own the basics: source control, a build pipeline, crash reporting
•Handle the Google Play listing, releases, and policy requirements
•Integrate with the systems we already run: [POS, scheduling, payments, CRM]
•Translate business requirements into scope, and say plainly what will not fit
•Document what you build so the next person is not starting from zero
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
•[Number] years of Android development, including at least one app you took
from nothing to a live release yourself
•Kotlin, plus enough backend or API knowledge to work without a backend team
•Comfort making decisions with incomplete information and no senior reviewer
•Plain-language communication with people who are not engineers
•Reliability, because you are the only person who can fix a production issue
WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT
•Not a specialist role: expect to touch the release process, the store listing,
the analytics, and occasionally the backend
•Not a large-scale role: our user base is [number], and the interesting
problems are about fit and reliability, not distributed systems
•Not unsupported: [budget for tooling, contractor hours, or an advisor]
CLASSIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE NOTE
A sole developer is still an employee if you control the work, and the computer
employee exemption applies on the same terms: a salary of at least $684 per week
or an hourly rate of at least $27.63, plus a primary duty of software design,
development, testing, or modification. Do not solve budget pressure by paying a
full-time developer as a contractor. Two things to settle before the start date:
the Google Play Console account and signing keys belong to the business, not to
the developer, and the offer package includes a written intellectual property
assignment and confidentiality agreement. Businesses in a pay transparency state
must also publish a good-faith salary range in the posting. This is general
information, not legal advice.
EEO STATEMENT
[Company Name] is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable
accommodations for the essential functions of this role.
COMPENSATION AND HOW TO APPLY
Compensation: $_ to $_ per year, [benefits summary]
To apply, email __ with your resume and a link to an app
you took from an empty repository to a live Play Store listing.
Required Versus Nice to Have on the Android Stack
Require Kotlin, shipped production apps, and testing. Treat almost everything else as preferred. The most common failure in Android postings is a required list of eight named libraries, which filters out strong developers who used a different but equivalent tool and signals that you are matching keywords rather than judging engineers.
Item
Where it belongs
Why
Kotlin
Required
The default language for Android development; Java alone is a legacy signal in a new hire
Shipped apps in Google Play
Required
The cheapest quality signal you have, and the one a non-technical owner can evaluate personally
Jetpack Compose
Required for new apps, preferred for old ones
If your codebase is still on the view system, demanding Compose narrows the pool for no gain
Coroutines and flows
Required at mid level and above
Async work is where Android bugs live; a developer who avoids it will not scale with your app
Testing, unit and instrumented
Required
Ask what they test and what they deliberately do not; the answer tells you more than a yes
Release and Play Console experience
Required for a solo hire
On a one-person team, releases, policy declarations, and rollouts have no one else to fall to
Specific DI or networking libraries
Preferred
Hilt, Dagger, Retrofit, Ktor: name yours, but treat equivalents as transferable
Kotlin Multiplatform, Flutter, React Native
Preferred, or required for a dual-platform role
Only make it a requirement when you genuinely need both stores from one hire
Computer science degree
Rarely required
A large share of working mobile developers came through bootcamps or self-study; require it only if you truly will reject otherwise
One more filter worth adding: ask candidates which Android version and screen sizes they support and how they decide. The answer separates people who ship to real users from people who have only ever run an app on the latest emulator. Adjacent roles have their own required lists, and the front end developer templates and Java developer templates handle those.
Overtime and the Computer Employee Exemption
Most Android developers are exempt from overtime under the FLSA computer employee exemption, which requires both a qualifying primary duty and a qualifying pay level. The pay level is unusual because it accepts either a salary of at least $684 per week or an hourly rate of at least $27.63 per hour worked.
The rule sits in the federal regulation covering computer employees as exempt professionals, and the Department of Labor summarizes the same test in Fact Sheet 17E. The duties half is the part that fails in practice: work that is highly dependent on computers but is not systems analysis, programming, or software design does not qualify, however senior the title sounds.
The computer employee exemption has its own pay rule
Sections 13(a)(1) and 13(a)(17) of the Fair Labor Standards Act exempt computer systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose primary duty is the design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer programs. The pay test is unusual because it accepts either form: a salary of at least $684 per week, or an hourly rate of at least $27.63 per hour worked. That hourly option exists nowhere else in the white-collar exemptions, and it is why a genuinely hourly senior contractor-style developer can still be exempt. The duties test is the part that fails in practice. Someone who installs software, runs a help desk, or operates a computer heavily without designing or modifying programs is not exempt, whatever the title says. Check your state law too, because several states set a higher salary floor or a narrower duties test. This is general information, not legal advice.
Contractor is a legal status, not a budget decision
Hiring your only Android developer as a 1099 contractor to avoid payroll costs is the most common and most expensive mistake in small-company mobile hiring. The federal test looks at economic reality: control over schedule and method, the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss, investment in their own equipment and business, the permanence of the relationship, the degree of skill and initiative involved, and how integral the work is to your business. A person who works your hours on your core product indefinitely is an employee. Several states apply a stricter ABC test in which any work performed inside your usual course of business fails automatically. Genuine contract work exists, and the contract template on this page is written for it: fixed scope, fixed end date, defined deliverables, own equipment. Where you do use contractors, Form 1099-NEC reporting applies at $2,000 for payments made on or after January 1, 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Own the store account and the signing keys from day one
This is not employment law, but it wrecks more small companies than any classification error. The Google Play Console account, the upload key, the app signing configuration, and the store listing credentials should be registered to the business and administered by someone who is not the developer. Small companies routinely let the first developer create the account under a personal address because it is faster, and then discover on the day that person leaves that the company cannot publish an update to its own app. Recovery is slow, sometimes impossible, and always happens at the worst moment. Set it up correctly in the offer package: company-owned developer account, developer added as a user with defined permissions, credentials stored where the owner can reach them, and access removal written into the offboarding checklist alongside the laptop and the email account.
Intellectual property assignment belongs in the offer
Absent a written agreement, ownership of what a developer produces is far less obvious than founders assume, particularly for work started before the hire date, contributed on personal hardware, or built during a paid trial project. Put a written intellectual property assignment and a confidentiality agreement in the offer package, signed before the first commit, and list any pre-existing work the candidate wants carved out. Check your state, because several states restrict how far an assignment can reach into inventions an employee develops entirely on their own time, with their own equipment, and unrelated to the employer’s business, and an overbroad clause can be unenforceable rather than merely unpopular. Open source usage deserves its own paragraph: state which licenses are acceptable in your product and require attribution records, since license obligations follow the app into the store. This is general information, not legal advice.
Anyone outside the exemption needs hours tracked and overtime paid past forty in a week, which in mobile teams most often catches junior developers at low pay and support-adjacent roles. Our breakdown of exempt versus non-exempt classification walks through both tests. Remember that state law can be stricter than federal law and the stricter rule wins, so a role that is exempt under the FLSA may still be overtime-eligible where you operate.
What to Pay an Android Developer
There is no Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation for Android developers specifically, so benchmark against software developers, occupation code 15-1252, and adjust down for a smaller market and a smaller app. The federal data covers the whole software developer population, which skews toward large employers in expensive metros.
Software Developer Wages, National
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), software developers earned a national median of $135,980 per year, or $65.38 per hour. The percentile ladder runs $82,460 at the 10th, $105,210 at the 25th, $171,980 at the 75th, and $214,670 at the 90th (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS national estimates).
Benchmark
National median (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
How to use it for an Android role
Software developers (15-1252)
$135,980 per year
The closest classification; Android developers are counted here
10th percentile, software developers
$82,460 per year
Junior mobile roles outside major tech metros land near this band
25th percentile, software developers
$105,210 per year
A realistic floor for a mid-level solo Android hire at a small business
75th percentile, software developers
$171,980 per year
Senior or lead mobile roles at product companies
90th percentile, software developers
$214,670 per year
Large-employer senior bands; rarely the right comparison for a small team
Computer programmers (15-1251)
$100,390 per year
Maintenance-heavy roles on an existing app benchmark closer to this
Software QA analysts and testers (15-1253)
$104,300 per year
Use if the role is mostly test and release rather than feature development
Web developers (15-1254)
$92,650 per year
The right anchor only if the app is a thin wrapper around a web experience
Publish a good-faith range in the posting. Several states and cities now require one, and our guide to pay transparency laws covers where. Even where nothing requires it, mobile candidates compare offers across a very wide band, and a posting without a number gets skipped by exactly the developers who have options.
Companies Using FirstHR Onboard 3x Faster
Join hundreds of small businesses who transformed their new hire experience.
Screening Android Candidates Without a Technical Team
You can evaluate an Android developer without writing code yourself, and the strongest signal is free: install the apps they shipped and use them. Ten minutes on your own phone tells you about polish, error handling, and judgment in a way no resume line does.
1
Install what they built
Ask for live Play Store links, not screenshots. Use the app for ten minutes. Note how it handles a bad network, a wrong password, and an empty state. Those three moments separate careful developers from fast ones.
2
Ask five non-technical questions
What did you own versus what did the team own? What broke in production and how did you find out? Which Android versions do you support and why? What would you rebuild? What did you decide not to build? Vague answers here are the real red flag.
3
Buy two hours of a senior developer
Pay an outside senior engineer for one technical conversation and one code sample review. It is the cheapest insurance available to a non-technical employer and it turns an unmakeable decision into a normal one.
4
Use a small paid exercise, not a free project
A two to four hour paid take-home or a review of your existing code respects the candidate and produces real signal. Unpaid multi-day builds lose you the strongest applicants and can create wage exposure.
5
Check references who saw them ship
A manager or peer who watched a release go out gives you more than a character reference. Ask what the person owned, how they handled a production incident, and whether the referee would hire them again.
Do Not Let the Developer Register the Store Account
The single most damaging shortcut in small-company mobile hiring is letting the first developer create the Google Play Console account under a personal email because it takes five minutes and the company entity paperwork is not ready. When that person leaves, the business cannot publish an update to its own app, and recovery is slow and sometimes impossible. Register the developer account to the company, hold the signing keys where the owner can reach them, add the developer as a user with defined permissions, and put access removal on the offboarding checklist next to the laptop.
Hiring a Mobile Developer Without an HR Department
Small company mobile hiring fails in three predictable places: you cannot evaluate the skill, the posting describes someone else's company, and onboarding turns into an untracked pile of access grants. Each has a practical fix.
You are hiring for a skill you cannot evaluate yourself
Most small companies hiring their first Android developer have nobody on staff who can read Kotlin. The usual response is to lean on years of experience and a familiar-looking resume, which selects for people who interview well rather than people who ship. There is a better cheap answer: ask for a live app in the Play Store, install it, and use it for ten minutes on your own phone. You will learn more about attention to detail, error handling, and taste than any keyword match gives you. Then pay a trusted senior developer for two hours to run one technical conversation and read one code sample. Two hours of an outside expert costs less than one bad month of a wrong hire, and it converts a decision you cannot make into one you can.
The posting describes a stack you do not have and a scale you will never reach
Generic Android job description templates are written from large-company postings, so they ask for microservices experience, distributed systems, and five named frameworks that your app does not use. Copy that and you filter out the developers who would be happiest with your work while attracting people who will leave in six months for a bigger problem. Name your real stack, your real user numbers, and your real release cadence. Small numbers are not a weakness in a posting: a developer who wants to own an entire app and talk to the owner directly is reading for exactly those signals, and they cannot find them in a posting that pretends to be something else.
Onboarding a developer means access, and access is where small companies get sloppy
A new developer needs the repository, the build pipeline, the crash reporting tool, the API keys, the design files, the staging environment, the Google Play Console, and the signed intellectual property and confidentiality agreements, usually inside the first two days. Handed out over chat, that access is never fully recorded and never fully removed when the person leaves. FirstHR runs the same onboarding sequence for every hire: the offer, the IP assignment, and the policy acknowledgments go out for e-signature, equipment and account grants live on the checklist as tracked tasks, documents sit against the employee profile where you can find them, and offboarding reverses the same list instead of relying on memory. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Once the offer is signed, the work becomes a repeatable onboarding checklist, and for engineering hires specifically our guide to onboarding remote developers covers the sequence from access grants through the first shipped change.
Key Takeaways
Write the Android posting around what the app is to your business, because a consumer product company and a small business with an operational app should share almost no language.
Require Kotlin, shipped Play Store apps, and testing; treat named libraries and a computer science degree as preferred rather than filtering out equivalent experience.
Android developers usually qualify for the FLSA computer employee exemption, which needs a genuine software development primary duty plus either $684 per week or $27.63 per hour.
Contractor status is a legal test of economic reality, not a budget decision; a sole developer working your hours on your core product indefinitely is an employee.
Benchmark pay to software developers (BLS OEWS, May 2025): a $135,980 national median, with the 25th percentile at $105,210 and the 75th at $171,980.
Register the Google Play Console account and signing keys to the business, and put a signed intellectual property assignment in the offer package before the first commit.
A developer hire is mostly access: repositories, pipelines, API keys, store accounts, and signed agreements, all inside the first two days. FirstHR runs that as one tracked sequence, with e-signature for the offer and the IP assignment, documents stored against the employee profile, and the same list reversed at offboarding. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an Android developer do?
An Android developer designs, builds, tests, and ships the software that runs on Android phones, tablets, and other Android devices. Day to day that means writing Kotlin (and maintaining the Java that survives in older codebases), building interfaces with Jetpack Compose or the older view system, connecting the app to backend APIs, handling offline state and errors, writing tests, and fixing crashes and performance problems reported from real devices. The part people outside engineering underestimate is the release work: preparing builds, managing signing keys, filling in Google Play data safety and policy declarations, running staged rollouts, and reading crash and performance dashboards after each release. On a small team the same person also owns the store listing, the analytics, and often a slice of the backend. Write the job description around the version of that job you actually have.
What should an Android developer job description include?
Eight things: what the app does and who uses it, the team structure and what this person owns, the real stack named without hedging, the responsibilities including release and support duties, the required experience stated as years of shipped production work plus specific libraries, the FLSA classification, the salary range, and how to apply with a named person and a timeline. Two items generic templates almost always omit matter more for a small company than anything else on the list: a note that the Google Play Console account and signing keys belong to the business, and a mention that the offer includes an intellectual property assignment and a confidentiality agreement. Say both in the posting rather than surprising a candidate with paperwork at the offer stage. The six templates on this page follow that structure so the only parts you rewrite are the ones specific to your company.
Are Android developers exempt from overtime?
Usually yes, under the FLSA computer employee exemption. Sections 13(a)(1) and 13(a)(17) exempt computer systems analysts, programmers, software engineers, and similarly skilled workers whose primary duty is the design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, or modification of computer programs. The pay test accepts either a salary of at least $684 per week or an hourly rate of at least $27.63 per hour worked, which is unusual: no other white-collar exemption offers an hourly route. The duties test is where roles fail. A person who installs and configures software, staffs a help desk, or simply uses a computer heavily is not exempt no matter what the title says, and a junior role at low pay may fall below the salary or hourly floor. Several states set a higher threshold or a narrower duties test, and the stricter rule governs. Classify on duties and pay, not on the word developer. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much does an Android developer make?
There is no separate Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation for Android developers, so the right benchmark is software developers, occupation code 15-1252. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey (May 2025), software developers earned a national median of $135,980 per year, or $65.38 per hour, with the 10th percentile at $82,460, the 25th at $105,210, the 75th at $171,980, and the 90th at $214,670. Nearby classifications run lower: computer programmers at a $100,390 median, software quality assurance analysts and testers at $104,300, and web developers at $92,650. Mobile work at a small company outside a major tech metro usually lands between the 25th and 50th percentiles, while senior mobile roles at product companies sit above the median. Benchmark to your local market and to the size of the app rather than to the national figure, and publish a good-faith range where pay transparency law requires one.
Should I hire an Android developer or a cross-platform mobile developer?
Hire a native Android developer when Android is the platform your customers actually use and the app depends on device capabilities: background work, hardware integration, widgets, performance-sensitive media, or deep operating system features. Hire a cross-platform mobile developer when you need both stores from one budget and the app is mostly screens, forms, lists, and API calls, which describes most small business apps. The honest trade is that cross-platform saves you roughly one salary and costs you some native fidelity plus a dependency on a framework you did not write. What you should not do is post a native Android role and quietly expect iOS too. That mismatch surfaces at the worst point, usually after the Android app ships and someone asks when the iPhone version arrives. Decide first, then pick the matching template from this page.
Can I hire an Android developer as an independent contractor?
Only if the engagement is genuinely independent. The test is economic reality, not the label on the agreement: who controls the schedule and the method, whether the worker can profit or lose based on their own management, how much they invest in their own equipment and business, how permanent the relationship is, the skill and initiative involved, and how central the work is to your business. A fixed-scope build with defined deliverables, an end date, and a developer using their own machines and serving other clients is a real contract engagement. Your only developer, working your hours on your core product indefinitely, is an employee regardless of what the invoice says. Several states apply a stricter ABC test where work inside your usual course of business fails automatically. Getting it wrong means back overtime, payroll taxes, and penalties. Use the contract template on this page for real contract work, and the employee templates for everything else.
How do I hire an Android developer with no HR department?
Run a short fixed sequence and keep it moving, because strong mobile candidates are usually in three processes at once. Write a posting that names your real stack, your real scale, and a salary range. Screen on shipped apps rather than resumes: install what the candidate built and use it. Run one technical conversation with a senior developer you trust, paid by the hour if you have nobody in-house. Give a small paid take-home or a code review exercise instead of an unpaid multi-day project. Check two references who saw the person ship. Then move to offer within days, not weeks. Once the offer is signed, treat onboarding as a checklist rather than a scramble: signed agreements including the IP assignment, repository and pipeline access, company-owned store account access, equipment, and payroll paperwork. FirstHR handles that sequence with e-signature, document storage, and task tracking. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
