Android Architect, Cape
More information about location
Privacy-first mobile network
Be an early applicant
Privacy-first mobile network
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
101-200 employees
Company mission
To reimagine connectivity in this mobile-first world, with privacy and security at the core.
Role
Who you are
- Deep expertise in Android development, architecture, and modern mobile engineering patterns
- Strong command of Kotlin and contemporary Android frameworks, tools, and best practices
- Strong understanding of application architecture, state management, networking, concurrency, testing, and release management
- Ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs with good judgment
- Sees beyond individual tickets and understands how technical decisions impact the broader system over time
- Designs with scale, maintainability, reliability, and team velocity in mind
- Anticipates future needs and avoids solving today’s problem in a way that creates three worse ones next quarter
- Makes thoughtful, high-quality technical decisions in ambiguous or fast-moving environments
- Knows when to invest deeply and when to choose the pragmatic path
- Escalates risks early and communicates technical constraints clearly
- Leads through credibility, clarity, and consistency
- Gives strong technical feedback directly and constructively
- Creates alignment across engineers and cross-functional partners without creating drama or bottlenecks
- Holds a high bar while still being someone people want to build with
- Takes responsibility for the health, quality, and direction of the Android app
- Proactively identifies issues and opportunities without waiting to be asked
- Follows through reliably and drives work to completion
- Communicates technical concepts clearly to both engineers and non-engineers
- Works effectively across Product, Design, Backend, Security, and leadership
- Can disagree without becoming territorial, and can align without becoming passive
What the job involves
- The Android Architect is responsible for setting the technical direction for Cape’s Android application and ensuring the team delivers a product that is stable, scalable, secure, and deeply aligned with user and business needs
- This person is not just the most senior Android engineer in the room. They are the owner of Android technical quality, architecture, and engineering standards
- They make thoughtful decisions about how the Android ecosystem should be built, where the codebase should evolve, and how the team balances speed with long-term maintainability
- They partner closely with Product, Design, Backend, Security, and company leadership to translate business priorities into strong technical execution
- They are expected to lead through influence, raise the bar for engineering craftsmanship, and create clarity in complex technical spaces
- Architecture & Technical Direction:
- Define and drive the long-term technical architecture for the Android application
- Make sound, pragmatic decisions about frameworks, patterns, libraries, and system design
- Ensure the Android codebase is scalable, maintainable, testable, and resilient as product complexity grows
- Identify and proactively address technical debt, performance bottlenecks, and architectural risks before they become business problems
- Establish clear standards for code quality, modularity, reliability, observability, and release readiness
- Delivery & Execution:
- Lead the technical execution of complex Android initiatives from design through launch
- Break down ambiguous product or technical problems into clear implementation plans
- Partner with Engineering and Product leadership to scope work appropriately and make smart tradeoff decisions
- Ensure the Android team ships high-quality work with urgency, while preserving the long-term health of the platform
- Act as a technical escalation point for difficult engineering issues, production incidents, and cross-functional dependencies
- Technical Leadership:
- Provide day-to-day technical leadership to Android engineers through design reviews, code reviews, pairing, and coaching
- Raise the bar for engineering judgment, code quality, and problem-solving across the team
- Create clarity for other engineers by documenting architectural decisions, technical strategy, and implementation patterns
- Mentor engineers at varying levels of seniority and help grow stronger ownership and technical depth across the team
- Influence technical decisions beyond Android, especially where mobile architecture intersects with backend systems, security, platform, and product experience
- Product & Cross-Functional Partnership:
- Partner with Product and Design to ensure technical implementation supports a high-quality, intuitive user experience
- Bring an engineering perspective early into planning conversations, helping shape solutions rather than just executing tickets
- Collaborate with backend and platform teams to define clean APIs, efficient integrations, and scalable mobile-friendly systems
- Help leadership understand technical constraints, risks, and opportunities in a way that enables better decision-making
- Advocate for Android users and for a high-quality mobile experience as a core part of the product
- Reliability, Security & Operational Excellence:
- Ensure the Android application meets high standards for reliability, privacy, and security
- Improve observability, monitoring, release processes, and incident response for the Android app
- Drive best practices around app performance, crash reduction, offline behavior, and release stability
- Partner with Security and Infrastructure teams to ensure the app is built and operated responsibly
- Build systems and processes that allow the Android team to scale without quality falling off a cliff
- What Great Looks Like:
- The Android app has a clear architectural direction
- Engineers are shipping quickly, but not by quietly setting future fires
- Cross-functional partners trust this person because they are thoughtful, solutions-oriented, and honest about tradeoffs
- The Android team has strong standards, cleaner execution, and fewer avoidable issues in production
- Other engineers grow under this person’s leadership
- All mobile Android software becomes more stable, performant, and scalable over time, even as the product gets more complex
Our take
The massive amounts of data that telecom companies hold on their customers, and the various weak spots in mobile networks, offer many lucrative possibilities for hackers. With massive mobile network data breaches affecting the likes of US telecom giant AT&T, Cape is a mobile network responding with a way to reconcile personal privacy and national security.
Cape positions itself as a privacy-first mobile network, offering 5G and 4G speeds with more privacy. It collects minimal personally identifiable information from its customers as well as offering spam protection, hardened account security and firewall. The network itself piggybacks on existing cellular networks and uses advanced encryption and data protocols to protect its customers.
The company has attracted good investment and secured contracts with the US military because of the network's ability to contribute to national security. Cape only came out of stealth in 2024, though, and its first steps will be to provide its users with eSIMs. A partnership with UScellular will help grow the company's market share as well.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Mar 2026
$100m
SERIES C
Mar 2025
$15m
SERIES B
Total funding: $176m
Company benefits
- Medical insurance
- Vision insurance
- Dental insurance
- 401(k)
- Paid maternity leave
- Paid paternity leave
- Commuter benefits
- Disability insurance
Company HQ
North Rosslyn, Arlington, VA
Leadership
John Doyle
(Founder & CEO)Currently Board Member at Vannevar Labs. Previously held positions at Palantir Technologies and was a Judicial Law Clerk at Eastern District of Virginia.
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