{"id":3511790,"url":"https://alion.io/job/watu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering","title":"Tech Lead - Android Experience Engineering","company":{"id":177531,"name":"Watu Credit","domain":"watu.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/watu-credit","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"JazzHR","truth_index":null},"role":"Mobile","role_family":"Mobile","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Nairobi, Kenya"],"countries":["KE"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":16500,"max_usd":46000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":87},"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"GitHub","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Kanban","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"OWASP Top 10","optional":false},{"name":"Scrum","optional":false},{"name":"Swagger","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":null,"last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T00:00:00Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":14,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":14},"description":"What You Will Own\n\nArchitecture & technical direction\n\nOwn the technical architecture for your squad's domain - system design, API contracts, data models, integration patterns, and the Architectural Decision Records that document why.\n\nEnforce the Watu engineering standards within your squad: GitHub for all code, mandatory PR review, coverage gates, OpenAPI documentation, runbooks, and secrets management.\n\nBe the squad's representative to the Platform General Architecture - escalate cross-squad concerns, contribute to shared standards, and ensure your squad's patterns align with the broader platform direction.\n\nDelivery & quality\n\nReview and approve all pull requests for your squad. Not as a bottleneck, but as the quality gate. Your name is on everything that ships.\n\nDefine and maintain the squad's Definition of Done. Work with the embedded QA engineer to ensure quality is built in, not bolted on.\n\nOwn the squad's release process. Nothing ships without your sign-off - including work from external partners where applicable.\n\nDrive sprint planning with the Product Owner - translate user stories into technical tasks, surface dependencies, flag risks early.\n\nPartner & vendor governance\n\nWhere your squad governs an external partner, you are the technical point of accountability. The partner executes; you govern. Architecture decisions, code quality, and release timing are owned internally.\n\nReview partner code via PR access. Nothing a partner ships enters production without your review.\n\nPeople management (light but real)\n\nYou have 4-6 direct reports: typically 1–2 Backend Engineers, 1–2 Frontend/Mobile Engineers, and 1-2 QA Engineers. They report to you for day-to-day work; the QA Chapter Lead reports to the Head of Engineering for standards but to you operationally.\n\nUnblock engineers actively - pair on hard problems, review designs before they build, and create an environment where asking for help is normal and fast.\n\nGive direct, timely feedback to your direct reports. Engineer growth happens through clear, specific feedback delivered close to the moment - not through annual cycles. You are the primary person responsible for the development of the engineers in your squad.\n\nYour input into performance reviews and hiring decisions carries significant weight - the Head of Engineering will lean heavily on your assessment of each engineer in your squad.\n\nModel AI-native engineering. Every engineer in your squad is expected to use AI/LLM tools actively. You set the tone for what that looks like in practice.\n\nWho You Are\n\nEssential\n\n7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years where you were the de facto technical authority for a significant product area or team.\n\nStrong backend engineering fundamentals: distributed systems, event-driven architecture, API design, database design, and testing strategy.\n\nProven ability to review and reason about code across the full stack of your domain - you can give a meaningful review on any PR your squad raises.\n\nExperience in an Agile/Scrum or Kanban environment where you drove sprint ceremonies, backlog refinement, and delivery alongside a Product Owner.\n\nClear, direct communicator - with engineers, with Product, and upward to the Head of Engineering.\n\nStrongly preferred\n\nExperience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services in Africa, LATAM or APAC.\n\nExperience governing external engineering partners or SaaS vendor integrations.\n\nHands-on experience with Java backend development (our primary backend language).\n\nFamiliarity with event-driven architecture, Kafka or equivalent message brokers.\n\nEngineering standards you are expected to uphold\n\nAll code in GitHub - mandatory peer review, unified branching strategy, green CI before merge.\n\nAPIs documented with OpenAPI/Swagger; Architecture Decision Records for significant decisions.\n\nNo secrets in code - AWS Secrets Manager or Vault. OWASP Top 10 awareness is a baseline expectation.\n\nAI/LLM tooling used actively in your daily workflow - code generation, test writing, documentation, debugging.\n\nThis role is NOT right for you if\n\nYou want to be shielded from difficult technical decisions by a more senior architect above you. There isn't one at this level.\n\nYou want to move away from technical work. You will have several direct reports and real people management responsibilities - but you will also be the most technical person in the squad. If the goal is to stop writing code and reviewing architecture, this is the wrong step.\n\nYou prefer to work independently and find code review and pair programming friction rather than value.\n\n What You Will Own\n\nArchitecture & technical direction\n\nOwn the technical architecture for your squad's domain - system design, API contracts, data models, integration patterns, and the Architectural Decision Records that document why.\n\nEnforce the Watu engineering standards within your squad: GitHub for all code, mandatory PR review, coverage gates, OpenAPI documentation, runbooks, and secrets management.\n\nBe the squad's representative to the Platform General Architecture - escalate cross-squad concerns, contribute to shared standards, and ensure your squad's patterns align with the broader platform direction.\n\nDelivery & quality\n\nReview and approve all pull requests for your squad. Not as a bottleneck, but as the quality gate. Your name is on everything that ships.\n\nDefine and maintain the squad's Definition of Done. Work with the embedded QA engineer to ensure quality is built in, not bolted on.\n\nOwn the squad's release process. Nothing ships without your sign-off - including work from external partners where applicable.\n\nDrive sprint planning with the Product Owner - translate user stories into technical tasks, surface dependencies, flag risks early.\n\nPartner & vendor governance\n\nWhere your squad governs an external partner, you are the technical point of accountability. The partner executes; you govern. Architecture decisions, code quality, and release timing are owned internally.\n\nReview partner code via PR access. Nothing a partner ships enters production without your review.\n\nPeople management (light but real)\n\nYou have 4-6 direct reports: typically 1–2 Backend Engineers, 1–2 Frontend/Mobile Engineers, and 1-2 QA Engineers. They report to you for day-to-day work; the QA Chapter Lead reports to the Head of Engineering for standards but to you operationally.\n\nUnblock engineers actively - pair on hard problems, review designs before they build, and create an environment where asking for help is normal and fast.\n\nGive direct, timely feedback to your direct reports. Engineer growth happens through clear, specific feedback delivered close to the moment - not through annual cycles. You are the primary person responsible for the development of the engineers in your squad.\n\nYour input into performance reviews and hiring decisions carries significant weight - the Head of Engineering will lean heavily on your assessment of each engineer in your squad.\n\nModel AI-native engineering. Every engineer in your squad is expected to use AI/LLM tools actively. You set the tone for what that looks like in practice.\n\nWho You Are\n\nEssential\n\n7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years where you were the de facto technical authority for a significant product area or team.\n\nStrong backend engineering fundamentals: distributed systems, event-driven architecture, API design, database design, and testing strategy.\n\nProven ability to review and reason about code across the full stack of your domain - you can give a meaningful review on any PR your squad raises.\n\nExperience in an Agile/Scrum or Kanban environment where you drove sprint ceremonies, backlog refinement, and delivery alongside a Product Owner.\n\nClear, direct communicator - with engineers, with Product, and upward to the Head of Engineering.\n\nStrongly preferred\n\nExperience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services in Africa, LATAM or APAC.\n\nExperience governing external engineering partners or SaaS vendor integrations.\n\nHands-on experience with Java backend development (our primary backend language).\n\nFamiliarity with event-driven architecture, Kafka or equivalent message brokers.\n\nEngineering standards you are expected to uphold\n\nAll code in GitHub - mandatory peer review, unified branching strategy, green CI before merge.\n\nAPIs documented with OpenAPI/Swagger; Architecture Decision Records for significant decisions.\n\nNo secrets in code - AWS Secrets Manager or Vault. OWASP Top 10 awareness is a baseline expectation.\n\nAI/LLM tooling used actively in your daily workflow - code generation, test writing, documentation, debugging.\n\nThis role is NOT right for you if\n\nYou want to be shielded from difficult technical decisions by a more senior architect above you. There isn't one at this level.\n\nYou want to move away from technical work. You will have several direct reports and real people management responsibilities - but you will also be the most technical person in the squad. If the goal is to stop writing code and reviewing architecture, this is the wrong step.\n\nYou prefer to work independently and find code review and pair programming friction rather than value.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9237,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Leasing, Auto & Equipment Finance"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-30T07:59:17Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":38,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":0.85,"p_active":0.816,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":14,"expected_fill_days":14,"reasons":["seen:14","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/watu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/watu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-03T12:47:18Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":17693,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-04T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":177531},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=177531"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwatu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwatu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwatu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/watu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwatu-credit-tech-lead-android-experience-engineering"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3511790}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"watu.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3511790},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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