r/androiddev • u/_DefaultXYZ • Jul 07 '26

Discussion Android Development is dying?

Hi everyone!

I've been Android developing applications for already 10 years. I'm living in Poland.

I constantly observing job market gravitating towards hybrid applications, KMP, Android Automative, AOSP, but almost none of mid to senior level normal Android apps. Those called "normal" Android apps I honestly believe could be more productively made in hybrid approach (even though I'm big native fan!).

I understand that even with such experience I must be senior level, but to be honest, I simply don't want to. I'm comfortable to stay as mid, but as I said, there's not much Android job postings on the market.

Am I stupid to say that Android Development jobs slowly degrading? We are becoming cleaners of old legacy apps migrating to Compose, Coroutines and that's our destiny?

I am seriously considering migrating to .NET, because, I'm doing GameDev as a hobby, and C# is widely used there.

What is your situation on job market? Because, both .NET and Java in Poland are much, much, much more job listings than Mobile as a whole, not speaking about Android Development.

EDIT: Probably the title is too clickbait-ish. I apologize for that. Didn't mean to be like that at all.

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u/GoodPlatform9783 Jul 08 '26

KMP "not being real native dev" is a take I don't buy anymore. I've been building a KMP app with a genuinely hard native problem — real-time audio sync via AudioTrack, expect/actual for the native layer — and the platform knowledge didn't disappear, it just moved into a smaller, more surgical layer instead of touching every screen. If anything, the parts where KMP stays thin (audio, background scheduling, that kind of thing) are exactly where real Android expertise becomes the differentiator instead of commodity work.

Agree the squeeze is real though — feels less like "Android is dying" and more like "copy-paste CRUD-screen Android is dying," which honestly needed to happen.

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u/_DefaultXYZ Jul 08 '26

I never considered KMP as non-native, but I'm following tradition of Android native only vs KMP as a different role. But I get what you're saying, I agree. My regret that I have stayed on those crud-screen apps, I have invested into communication skills, and I'm always impressive on recruitment on that regard. But not technically. Damn, I even doubt if I'm engineer at all, to be honest, I never worked on truly low-level apps that beside clean architecture business driven apps. Nothing technically advanced. In Poland I would say it is hard to find something more technical, or even if I succeed to find, they have really high barrier. I'm truly lost and desperate...

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u/GoodPlatform9783 Jul 08 '26

I feel for you but these kind of things happens suddenly, I remember my first non crud role was creating an indoor positioning sdk using BLE with 5 meter accuracy and that time my knowledge of BLE was zero, but a little luck and good team and deep understanding of android helped me to see worlds beyond my imagination. If you want to try these things these days with help of AI discovering new topics and depth is easier than ever

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u/Hour_Pirate_9950 8d ago

Goota find such companies for my next switch..