Android Application Engineer

ABOUT LILT

AI is changing how the world communicates — and LILT is leading that transformation.

We're on a mission to make the world's information accessible to everyone, regardless of the language they speak. We use cutting-edge AI, machine translation, and human-in-the-loop expertise to translate content faster, more accurately, and more cost-effectively without compromising on brand, voice, or quality.

At LILT, we empower our teammates with leading tools, global collaboration, and growth opportunities to do their best work. Our company virtues—Work together, win together; Find a way or make one; Quicker than they expect; Quality is Job 1—guide everything we do. We are trusted by Intel Corporation https://www.linkedin.com/company/intel-corporation/, Canva https://www.linkedin.com/company/canva/, the United States Department of Defense https://www.linkedin.com/company/deptofdefense/, the United States Air Force https://www.linkedin.com/company/united-states-air-force/, ASICS https://www.linkedin.com/company/asics/, and hundreds of global Enterprises. Backed by Sequoia, Intel Capital, and Redpoint, we’re building a category-defining company in a $50B+ global translation market being redefined by AI.

LILT is looking for an Android Application Engineer to join the team building LILT Converse, our on-device instant translation application. Converse enables secure, real-time speech translation without an internet connection — making it the go-to solution for government, defense, and enterprise teams operating in communication-sensitive or connectivity-constrained environments. You will work at the intersection of cutting-edge on-device AI and polished mobile UX, building software that runs large multilingual speech models directly on Android hardware leveraging Qualcomm Snapdragon AI acceleration. This is a high-impact role on a product that is moving quickly.

As the Android engineer on Converse, you will own the Android application end-to-end — from architecture and on-device ML integration through performance tuning, release, and reliability in the field — working closely with ML, product, and design on a small senior team. You will architect new features, integrate on-device ML models, optimize performance, manage large local model assets, and ensure rock-solid reliability in the field. You will ship capabilities like multilateral translation (simultaneous 3+ language conversations), utterance management, kiosk deployment modes, and enterprise configuration. You will be comfortable reasoning about hardware constraints, APK packaging, sideloading workflows, and the tradeoffs of running multi-gigabyte inference workloads on mobile SoCs.

We are looking for someone who thrives in a fast-moving startup environment and takes pride in shipping software that works in the real world under demanding conditions.

This position may require access to U.S. government systems, facilities, or controlled information. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or nationals, or otherwise eligible to obtain any required government access authorization. LILT will consider all applicants and will work with selected candidates to determine applicable requirements.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

REQUIRED

• 4+ years of professional Android development (Kotlin), with a track record of owning a production Android app end-to-end — architecture, implementation, release, and field reliability

• Strong Android fundamentals: Android SDK, Jetpack, lifecycle, background work, and storage APIs

• Experience integrating native libraries via NDK/JNI (ML runtimes, audio engines, or similar)

• Comfort optimizing performance on physical devices — memory, latency, thermal behavior under sustained workloads

• Experience with offline-first applications and large on-device assets (multi-GB model files, packaging, sideloading)

• Real-time audio on Android: microphone capture, TTS/speaker output, and low-latency audio pipelines (including USB microphone support)

• On-device speech pipeline integration: wiring ASR → translation → TTS, handling streaming partial results, and managing turn-taking in a live conversation UI

• Enterprise deployment familiarity: sideloading, MDM/kiosk modes, pre-provisioned device configuration

• Bias toward shipping reliable software in demanding, real-world conditions

STRONG PLUS

• On-device ML runtime integration (ONNX Runtime, TensorFlow Lite, or Qualcomm QNN / Snapdragon NPU acceleration)

• External display / kiosk UX (HDMI output, presentation layers, broadcast-style overlays)

• Secure data handling: encrypted export, USB storage workflows, air-gapped or connectivity-constrained environments

• Prior work with government, defense, or enterprise customers

BONUS

• Deep speech/audio domain expertise beyond app integration — e.g. tuning latency/quality tradeoffs, noise handling and audio preprocessing, model quantization on mobile SoCs, or direct work with speech model runtimes

• iOS / Swift experience

• CI/CD with hardware-in-the-loop testing on physical devices

OUR STORY

Our founders, Spence and John met at Google working on Google Translate. As researchers at Stanford and Berkeley, they both worked on language technology to make information accessible to everyone. While together at Google, they were amazed to learn that Google Translate wasn’t used for enterprise products and services inside the company.The quality just wasn’t there. So they set out to build something better. LILT was born.

LILT has been a machine learning company since its founding in 2015. At the time, machine translation didn’t meet the quality standard for enterprise translations, so LILT assembled a cutting-edge research team tasked with closing that gap. While meeting customer demand for translation services, LILT has prioritized investments in Large Language Models, human-in-the-loop systems, and now agentic AI.

With AI innovation accelerating and enterprise demand growing, the next phase of LILT’s journey is just beginning.

OUR TECH

What sets our platform apart:

• Brand-aware AI that learns your voice, tone, and terminology to ensure every translation is accurate and consistent

• Agentic AI workflows that automate the entire translation process from content ingestion to quality review to publishing

• 100+ native integrations with systems like Adobe Experience Manager, Webflow, Salesforce, GitHub, and Google Drive to simplify content translation

• Human-in-the-loop reviews via our global network of professional linguists, for high-impact content that requires expert review

LILT IN THE NEWS

• Featured in The Software Report’s https://www.thesoftwarereport.com/the-top-100-software-companies-of-2024/ Top 100 Software Companies!

• LILT makes it onto the Inc. 5000 List https://labs.lilt.com/lilt-listed-on-the-2024-inc-5000.

• LILT’s continues to be an intellectual powerhouse, holding numerous patents https://patents.justia.com/inventor/john-sturdy-denero that help power the most efficient and sophisticated AI and language models in the industry.

• Check out all our news on our website https://lilt.com/news.

Information collected and processed as part of your application process, including any job applications you choose to submit, is subject to LILT's Privacy Policy at https://lilt.com/legal/privacy.

At LILT, we are committed to a fair, inclusive, and transparent hiring process. As part of our recruitment efforts, we may use artificial intelligence (AI) and automated tools to assist in the evaluation of applications, including résumé screening, assessment scoring, and interview analysis. These tools are designed to support human decision-making and help us identify qualified candidates efficiently and objectively. All final hiring decisions are made by people. If you have any concerns, require accommodations, or would like to opt-out of the use of AI in our hiring process, please let us know at recruiting@lilt.com.

LILT is an equal opportunity employer. We extend equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to an individual’s race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic characteristics, veteran or marital status, pregnancy, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state or federal laws. We are committed to the principles of fair employment and the elimination of all discriminatory practices.