I'm an Android engineer who came up through QA and grew into someone who leads architecture decisions and mentors teammates without needing the title to do it. My ideal job gives me real ownership over features end-to-end, in an environment where fast iteration and quality aren't in tension with each other. My ideal company is past the early-startup chaos but still small enough that engineers have real influence — building something consumer-facing and data-driven that I actually believe in.
Category:Software Engineering
Experience: 5-10 years
Open to: On-site, Hybrid, Remote
Location: Minneapolis/St Paul Area
Timezones: US Eastern, US Central, US Mountain, US Pacific, US Alaska
Employment types: Full-time, Contract
Contribution types: Individual Contributor, People Manager
Status: Actively looking
Expertise: Android, Kotlin, and Java
In their words
How would you describe your ideal next role?
My ideal next role is a mid-to-senior Android or backend Java/Kotlin engineering position on a collaborative, cross-functional team where I can own features end-to-end and have a real impact on the product. I want to be working on software that real users depend on daily — whether that's a mobile application, a backend API platform, or both — alongside product managers, designers, and engineers who care about quality and craft. My core responsibilities would include designing and building production features, contributing to architectural decisions, writing tests, and participating in code reviews — ideally in an environment that values continuous improvement and gives engineers meaningful ownership over their work.
How would you describe your professional background?
I studied technical communication and sciences at the University of Minnesota and spent years as a working musician before deciding I wanted to build things rather than just describe or perform them, which led me to a full-stack bootcamp at Prime Digital Academy. I started my engineering career in QA, which gave me an instinct for edge cases and quality before I ever wrote a feature myself, and I used that foundation to grow into an Android engineer and eventually a platform engineer, leading a full XML-to-Compose migration along the way. That path is why I care as much about mentorship and code quality as I do about shipping — and why I'm looking for a team where I can keep growing both.
How would you describe your ideal next employer?
I do my best work at a company past the early-startup chaos but still small enough that engineers have real ownership — where I can take a feature from idea to production without layers of process in the way. Culturally, I'm drawn to teams with high agency and a quality-first mindset, where fast iteration is balanced by genuinely caring about the code and mentoring each other, not just shipping for its own sake. Industry-wise, I want to work on something consumer-facing and data-driven, ideally with a mission I actually believe in, where experimentation and real user impact guide the decisions rather than guesswork.
Anything else to add?
I'd add that my path into engineering was non-traditional — I came up through a coding bootcamp and a QA role rather than a CS degree, but that route gave me a strong quality-first instinct that's shaped how I build ever since.
