Software Developer - Android (Canada)
Waterloo, ON - Hybrid
Communication belongs to everyone. TextNow is one of the largest providers of free phone service in North America, connecting tens of millions of people who would otherwise be priced out of staying in touch. We pair a free, ad-supported tier with paid plans and a growing set of intelligent features - and we run it on infrastructure we own and operate. We move fast, we measure what we ship, and we treat AI as a core part of how we build, not a side experiment.
What You’ll Do
As a Software Developer on Android, you’ll own the systems, architecture, and tooling behind apps used by millions - operating strategically across mobile, backend, and data, and diving into the lowest-level details when the problem demands it. This is an AI-first role: using AI is not optional, it’s the expectation. We anticipate the majority of the code you ship will be AI-generated, with you as the architect, reviewer, and final authority on quality, correctness, and design. You’ll have access to the latest and greatest AI development tools, and you’ll help build our AI harness - the agents, workflows, evaluations, and guardrails the rest of engineering relies on. We hire across multiple levels (intermediate, senior, staff+) and align title and scope to demonstrated impact, not years on a résumé.
- Design, develop, and sustain high-performance Android applications in Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, with legacy Java interop, and AI tooling embedded throughout your workflow.
- Own the full lifecycle of your systems: feature ideation, API design, instrumentation, CI/CD deployment, live-traffic monitoring, unit/UI/e2e testing, telemetry and data analysis, A/B experiment design, and continuous iteration.
- Lead architectural modernization - decompose monoliths, build shared libraries and frameworks, improve modularization, and enable reuse across Android, iOS, and Web.
- Evaluate and adopt new Android platform capabilities (OS releases, device types, form factors, architectures) and lead their rollout.
- Build and extend our internal AI harness - agents, automation frameworks, evaluation pipelines, and guardrails - so the whole team ships faster and safer; continuously evolve how you use AI and push the org’s standards for what “good” looks like.
- Define observability standards, telemetry pipelines, and fault-tolerance strategies for production-grade mobile systems.
- Partner closely with product, design, backend, and data; drive technical discussions, mentor developers, and influence strategic direction across mobile.
Who You Are
We’re raising the bar. This role is not a fit for developers early in building production systems, and our screen reflects that. Strong candidates will clear most of the following:
- Deep Android expertise. Production mastery of Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, and Coroutines/Flow, plus comfort in legacy Java. You’ve shipped and operated consumer Android apps at meaningful scale.
- Architect-level judgment. A proven track record designing modular, maintainable systems that balance speed and reliability - and the ability to defend those trade-offs.
- Production-readiness as a default. You architect for observability and reliability: instrumentation, SLOs/SLIs, fault tolerance, runbooks, incident triage, scalable telemetry pipelines, and live production diagnostics for mobile clients.
- Genuine AI fluency. You already use AI across your development workflow and can speak specifically about where it helps, where it fails, and how you’ve improved on its output. You’re excited to generate most of your code with AI and to own the quality bar on top of it.
- Demonstrated technical leadership. You’ve influenced roadmaps, contributed to multi-team initiatives, mentored or led developers, driven process and culture improvements, and worked directly with senior engineering and product leadership.
- Performance and systems depth. Strong background in performance optimization, observability, and system-level debugging.
Who Thrives At TextNow
The strongest engineers we’ve hired share a set of traits. We screen for them directly, so come ready with specific examples:
- Initiative. You uncover problems and opportunities nobody asked you to solve, and you act on them.
- Customer obsession. Direct user observation and customer behavior change how you build - not just what the spec says.
- Curiosity that compounds. You go deep on technical topics on your own, and that curiosity turns into real process and product improvements.
- Comfort with ambiguity. You move forward decisively when information is missing, and you make sound calls when there’s no obvious right answer.
- Adaptive prioritization. When priorities shift midstream, you rebalance feature work against reliability, operational, and customer-impact concerns without losing the plot.
- Productive disagreement. When you disagree with an approach, you make the case directly and constructively, and you know how to disagree-and-commit.
- Scope-expanding ownership. You improve systems, workflows, and experiences beyond the original assignment.
Minimum Qualifications
We’re transitioning from hiring coders to hiring technologists - people who exercise judgment, learn relentlessly, and use AI as a force multiplier, rather than people who simply execute tickets. For the senior candidates this role targets, that judgment shows up as a track record.
- Deep experience building production Android applications with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. We care less about tenure and more about the complexity of the problems you’ve solved, the systems you’ve shipped, and the engineering decisions you’ve led.
- You’ve personally owned and operated a consumer Android app at significant scale - 1M+ monthly active users or comparable - across many release cycles. Contributing to such an app is not the same as owning it.
- Daily, fluent use of AI coding tools in real production work today, with the comfort to let AI generate the majority of your code while you own correctness, architecture, and quality.
- Deep command of Kotlin Coroutines and Flow, and Java interop within a large, long-lived codebase.
- Technical leadership across multiple teams: you’ve owned the architecture of a major system or module, set technical direction, and mentored senior engineers.
- Hands-on ownership of production reliability for mobile clients: SLOs/SLIs, instrumentation and telemetry pipelines, on-call rotation, and incident triage.
- A track record of measurable wins - performance, reliability, or user impact - that you drove, not just participated in.
The expected base salary range for this role is:
Canada Intermediate: CAD $113,400 - $162,000 annually
Canada Senior: CAD $158,000 – 207,000 annually
Canada Staff: CAD $200,400 – 248,000 annually
Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
Our goal is to offer a competitive package that reflects the impact and expertise you bring to the team.
AI usage: We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact our Talent Team.
More about TextNow
Our culture
We’re proud of the culture that we’ve built at TextNow, but one of the most common questions we hear is ‘how do you continue to sustain it as the world and the company continues to change?’ The reality is that we’re only able to keep up because each and every TextNovian contributes to our culture through being involved, by living our values, sharing feedback, embracing change and more!
Our values
Customer Obsessed
We strive to have a deep understanding of our customers.
Do Right By Our People
We treat each other with fairness, respect, and integrity.
Accept the Challenge
We adopt a “Yes, We Can” mindset to achieve ambitious goals.
Act Like an Owner
We treat this company like it’s our own… because it is!
Give a Damn
We are deeply committed and passionate about our work and achieving results.
Our benefits and more
This is a brief overview of the benefits that TextNow offers its employees. More complete details can be found in TextNow’s Benefit Guide and legal plan documents, which are available to employees on or shortly after their start date with TextNow. The benefits listed herein are for illustrative purposes only and may change from time-to-time in TextNow’s sole discretion.
Free phone service
Strong work life blend
Employee stock options
Unlimited vacation
12 paid holidays per year
Competitive pay
Health, dental, and vision benefits
Short-term & long-term disability
$750 annual wellness benefit or healthcare spending account
RRSP matching (Canada) | 401(K) (USA)
Parental leave for eligible employees
Learning & Development opportunities
We travel a few times a year for various team events, company-wide off-sites, and more
More information about our total rewards package will be available during the hiring process.
Dogfooding & Customer Obsession
At TextNow, every employee gets to actively use our app for calling and texting. Dogfooding helps us experience what customers do, to spot issues early, and drive better design, developer, and user experiences.
Diversity and Inclusion
Our aim is to make every person who joins TextNow feel like they belong, that they’re valued, and that they’re able to be their authentic selves at work.
We’re all accountable for creating an inclusive culture and a sense of belonging for one another. By doing this together, we’ll make TextNow better for everyone.
Equal opportunity
We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic.
Applicants who require reasonable accommodation during the hiring process may contact our Talent Team.
TextNow Candidate Policy
By submitting an application to TextNow, you agree to the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with the TextNow Candidate Policy
