What We Do
We design, build, and maintain the SpotHero Android and Android Auto apps. We collaborate to ensure our drivers have the best and most seamless experience when parking. We live and breathe the Android experience, and always strive to maintain an Android-first experience.
What We Love
- User-first experiences
- Design thinking
- Distributed systems development
- Building fast and scalable applications
- Cross-team collaboration
What are we working on?
Next-gen Authentication
As security becomes more top-of-mind for consumers, it’s important that we build tools and implement technologies that both keep our drivers secure, as well as make for and easy sign-in and sign-up process. Currently we are working on passwordless, SMS, and MFA sign-in options, on top of our existing login options.
Improving Checkout Experience
Over the last few years we’ve grown our checkout experience to include additional payment method and enhanced flexibility. In addition we have many roadmap items that focus on updating the checkout flow and providing more points of entry. In order to ensure we can seemlisly add new features it’s important that we build a framework that supports maintainability and a flexible architecture.
Technology
Development Tools
Android Studio is our go-to IDE for building our app and frameworks. We use Kotlin in our application and modules. We believe that the key to a maintainable codebase is a solid foundation and separation of concerns. We utilize an MVI architecture and are always evaluating and implementing new tools and libraries to maintain a cutting-edge codebase.
Testing
We utilize Espresso for our unit and automated UI tests where applicable, ensuring we right the appropriate tests that have the best chance of alerting the team to breaking changes. Unit tests must pass ahead of pull request merges and our extensive UI tests are run daily with results broadcasted to the team. Our testing team is responsible for regression and user acceptance testing and helping the development team understand the best approaches to a stable app.
Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
We use Bitrise as our CI/CD pipeline for our apps and SDKs, with direct deployment to the Google Play Store. Our repos utilize GitHub Actions to ensure passing builds and tests ahead of merging.
Networking
We built out separate modules for our networking and data layers, utilizing Retrofit, OKHttp, and GSON.
Local Data
We have been using Realm for many years, but just recently switched to using ObjectBox for our DAO. ObjectBox is a lightweight NoSQL persistence library that allows for easy migration, offline-first solution that is 10 fold faster than traditional SQLite libraries.
Code Standards
At SpotHero we follow Google’s Kotlin code-standards to maintain a familiar and easy to work with codebase.
Diagnostics
We are passionate about knowing what our users are experiencing, for better or worse. We utilize Sentry and Firebase for error reporting and MixPanel for event monitoring.
Some of Our Team Members
Here is an introduction to some of the members of the Android Retention Squad.
Ryan Perkins Mata
Engineering Manager
Background:
I’m originally from northern Indiana and moved to the Chicago area for college, where I studied animation. After graduating I moved on to Flash development and eventually progressed into mobile development, primarily Android. I am a huge Kotlin nerd and have given a number of conference presentations about unique approaches within Kotlin. As an engineering manager, it is important to me that the teams I work with respect each other and our users, assuming positive intent in all situations. I love the work that we do at SpotHero, as we are always looking at how to take the stress out of stressful situations and provide breakthrough solutions to parking.
What I Do for Fun:
In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my wife, daughter, and dog. I’m an avid rock climber, runner, and cyclist. I also enjoy woodworking, cooking, gardening, and 3D printing.
Fun Fact:
I built a 16’ cedar-strip canoe during the pandemic.
Limin Peng
Senior Engineer II, Android
Background:
I’m originally from China and came to the US for graduate study. After receiving my Master degree, I moved to Chicago to work at Motorola, developing cell phone software on various platforms, where I also started writing apps on Android since its debut in 2008. In 2012, I joined Harman International as Principal Engineer and developed media applications and entertainment services for First Gen in-vehicle Infotainment shipped for automotive manufacturers (GM, Opel etc). Drawn by SpotHero’s incredible fast pace adopting the latest technology, I joined in 2019 and have been enjoying delivering new features for improving the parking experience for our drivers.
What I Do for Fun:
Travel, hiking, watching movies, reading, playing table tennis, spending time with friends and family, cooking and trying new recipes, learning new languages.
Fun Fact:
Umar Ahmed
Senior Engineer, Android
Background:
I’m from Nigeria and studied Economics as an undergrad. Got into software development out of curiosity about how programs are built and after a lot of random learning early on. Started my career in 2017 working in a consulting company as a trainee software engineer (focusing on Android). Moved on to work on a fintech product focused on providing financial services using Android and POS devices.
Before joining SpotHero I was a Senior Android Engineer with Autochek Africa where I worked on a marketplace application focused on easing the process of trading new and used cars in several countries across Africa.
I moved to Canada as a permanent resident in 2022 and joined SpotHero shortly after.
What I Do for Fun:
I enjoy watching sci-fi and comedy TV shows, catching up on the English premier league and going for walks. I also recently started playing tennis.
Fun Fact:
I listen to all sorts of music(even in languages I don’t understand – French, Swahili, Spanish). Primarily listen to Nigerian(obvs), Country & Reggaeton songs.
Amit Chavan
Engineer III, Backend
Background:
I moved to Canada in 2017 as an international student. After graduating, I started as a backend developer at Texada Software Inc. where I gained and appreciation for business domain language. I joined SpotHero early 2022 and currently working on resolving backend issues for the mobile team.
What I Do for Fun:
I love watching sci-fi movies, national geographic documentaries, playing video games, playing sports like cricket, basketball, camping, hiking, biking.
Fun Fact:
I am deathly afraid of heights and snakes 🙂
Zack Gill
Associate Product Manager
Background:
I moved to Toronto during covid after just starting at SpotHero. In my career, I’ve worked for a number of start-ups and varying company sizes and have very much found to enjoy the culture and overall work at medium sized companies. In my career I have filled a few roles such as QA, test engineer, and now associate product manager at SpotHero. Before transitioning, I was a senior QA for the Money and Control Panel teams internally for SpotHero and have helped add to a number of testing tools and aid other QA’s in their growth here. I hope to never stop growing and learning more about software development and product management during my time in the field!
What I Do for Fun:
Outside of work, I enjoy playing a number of instruments, gaming, snowboarding, playing sports, and spending time with a number of close friends. When I can, I also try to see my family all over Canada.
Peter Zouck
Senior QA Analyst
Background: I played lacrosse in college at Dickinson and majored in Policy Management. Post grad, I worked for a publishing company in Baltimore in a customer service/sales role. Less than a year later I moved over to Parking Panda to work on our customer service team. After building relationships within the engineering department, I moved over to provide QA and L2 support for our 5 man dev squad and have been doing that ever since. Post SpotHero acquisition, I have been on teams focused on HeroTech (rip), Data Engineering, Drivers Web and now Drivers Mobile.
What I Do for Fun: Going to the beach, casual bike cruises or hikes, golf and tennis, cooking, video games, reading scifi/thrillers/general fiction.
Wenyi Wang
Lead Product Designer
Background:
I moved to the US about 8 years ago from China. I’ve spent the majority of my time in Chicago since then. I got my master in Human Computer Interaction from DePaul University and have worked at 5 different companies doing UX work. SpotHero is still my fav so far!
What I Do for Fun:
- Talking to ppl, I love a good personal story and getting to know ppl on a deep level!
- Cooking, I primarily cook Szechuan food, ask me for an authentic Szechuan food recipe recommendation, in English!
- I just started learning to play tennis and have been loving it!
Fun Fact:
I am among the bottom 2.5% shortest adults in the world. Very special.
Olivia Fernandes
Agile Coach
Background:
I grew up in Hyderabad, India to a Goan Family and moved to Toronto a few years ago to explore a new country.
- I have two Engineering Degrees – computer science , electronics and communication engineering and an MBA.
- I started my career as a QA and then moved into Business Analysis and Consulting. During one of my consulting projects, ( a rather slow and boring project) I stumbled upon Agile by chance as part of a gamification initiative.. What I originally took on as an experimental Knowledge Management initiative turned out to be the answers to most of the issues our project faced and I decided to move into Agile Project Management. (Grateful because I have never looked back! )
What I Do for Fun:
In my free time, I love hiking, travelling, cooking, karaoke and Dancing. I also love experimenting with new cuisines so restaurant hopping is my thing!
Join Us!
We are actively looking for a Staff Android engineer to join the team and help lead the team as we continue to grow.
Learn more: https://spothero.com/careers/4438705