About Very
(Remote – Canada)
Very is a fully distributed technology firm led by expert problem-solvers who create efficient, scalable solutions that move commercial, industrial, and consumer products from pilot to production in record time.
We believe that real innovation happens in the grind — working shoulder to shoulder with clients who are building the future. Our team thrives on that energy. When we’re not helping clients deliver business-critical outcomes, we’re refining our craft and celebrating what it means to do hard things well.
We’ve built a collaborative, tight-knit culture that thrives in both remote and in-person settings. We’ve won numerous workplace awards over the years, including Great Place to Work certification and recognition from Parity.org as a Best Company for Women to Advance.
Our clients include well-known brands like Vizio, Peloton, Clear, iHeart Radio, and Fellowes — all determined to leverage connected devices and AI to drive meaningful impact. Our job is simple: help them win.
As an Android Engineering Team Lead, you'll lead a team of 3 to 5 Android engineers embedded in a client's engineering organization through Very's staff augmentation model. The team builds system-level apps for an AOSP-based Android TV product, including a custom launcher, settings, setup and other platform-integrated apps that live inside the AOSP source tree rather than on an app store. About 80% of the codebase is Kotlin, alongside a React Native home experience and a JavaScript/TypeScript SDK for ads integration.
This is a full-time, long-term role that balances technical leadership with people management. You'll lead and grow your team, own their delivery, and stay deep enough in the stack to chase a problem from the app layer down through the framework to the hardware. You'll work in the client's codebase, tools and processes, partner day to day with their engineering and product leaders, and stay part of the Very team. At Very, a manager is accountable for both what the team ships and how the team works.
This is not an easy role. You'll work under real deadlines with a client who expects you and your team to be available, proactive and delivering from day one. If you like doing hard things well, you'll fit right in.
What You’ll Be Working On
As the leader of an embedded team within the client's engineering organization, you'll:
Lead a team of 3 to 5 Android engineers
This is a player-coach role: you’ll lead the team and also spend a meaningful part of your week as a hands-on engineer, writing and reviewing code alongside them.
Plan and prioritize the team's work with client engineering and product leaders, and own delivery against sprint and roadmap commitments.
Guide the design and build of system and privileged apps for an AOSP-based Android TV product, including the custom launcher, settings, setup and other platform-integrated apps.
Chase down problems vertically through the stack, from the app layer through the Android framework to the hardware, and coach the team to do the same.
Raise issues early when a problem is outside the team's control, and bring the client's ODMs and SoC providers in to help solve it.
Decide when to follow Google's specifications and best practices and when to deviate to support the business, and keep custom work easy to migrate.
Lead upgrades across Android versions, keeping hardware and low-level framework dependencies limited to the places that need them.
Oversee the React Native home experience and the JavaScript/TypeScript ads SDK alongside the native Kotlin apps.
Own the team's production support and incident response, and maintain system health, performance and reliability.
Collaborate across engineering, product and hardware partners to deliver high-quality outcomes.
You and your team will operate in an environment that includes:
Languages: Kotlin (most of the codebase), Java, JavaScript, TypeScript
Platform: AOSP, Android TV, SoC vendor Android SDKs
Modern Android: Jetpack…