Android Engineer (Senior-Staff Levels)

Cantina is a social AI platform company creating advanced real-time models that bring characters to life and transform how people create, connect, and tell stories. The company is building ecosystems powered by AI-driven capabilities, with a flagship app at the center of its mission to shape human creativity and social interactions. Cantina combines cutting-edge AI technology with consumer-focused product design, working at the intersection of social platforms and generative AI.

The Android Engineer role offers the opportunity to lead development of high-impact features across Cantina's platform, working closely with Product Managers, Designers, and company leadership. You'll have significant autonomy to influence product direction, move quickly with a small fast-moving team, and take ownership of features shipped to a large user base.

What you'll do

• Build and ship high-quality Android features using Jetpack Compose, Kotlin Coroutines, and modern Android architecture patterns

• Develop and optimize video and audio pipelines, real-time media effects, and AI-powered visual features for the Android platform

• Create immersive custom UI experiences leveraging Compose animations, custom drawing, and motion design

• Apply deep Android internals knowledge including memory management, rendering pipeline, Choreographer, and RenderThread to achieve smooth performance

• Design and maintain clean MVVM application architecture with well-separated concerns across UI, domain, and data layers

• Implement and manage dependency injection using Koin or Hilt to ensure scalable, testable module graphs

• Participate in architecture discussions and uphold standards for code quality, testability, and maintainability

• Collaborate with Product, Design, and QA teams to deliver polished, scalable experiences

What you'll bring

• At least 8 years of professional Android application development experience

• Expert-level Kotlin proficiency including idiomatic usage, coroutines, Flow, and advanced language features

• Deep expertise with Jetpack Compose including custom layouts, state management, animation APIs, and performance profiling

• Strong command of MVVM architecture and Android architecture components including ViewModel, LiveData, StateFlow, Room, Navigation, and WorkManager

• Hands-on production experience with dependency injection frameworks like Koin or Hilt

• Deep understanding of Android internals including the View system, RenderThread, Choreographer, garbage collection, and memory and battery profiling

• Experience with media frameworks such as ExoPlayer, MediaCodec, Camera2, and CameraX

• Ability to write readable, maintainable, well-documented, and thoroughly tested code

• Experience integrating RESTful APIs and proficiency with Git version control

• Meticulous attention to detail with motion and animation design

Nice to have

• Experience developing AI-driven media features or real-time video and audio effects on Android

• WebRTC implementation experience on Android

What they offer

• Base salary range of $180,000 to $240,000 annually, determined based on skills, experience, job scope, location, and market data

• Generous company equity

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with 99.99% of premiums covered by Cantina

• 42 days of paid time off annually including 15 PTO days, 10 sick days, 15 company holidays, and 2 floating holidays

• Comprehensive parental leave and fertility support benefits

• 401(k) retirement savings plan

• Monthly $500 lifestyle spending account for personal use

• Complimentary lunch and snacks for in-office employees and One Medical membership