Looking for a new adventure? You’ve come to the right place.
We're an Amsterdam-based team of 90+ (and counting) with 25+ nationalities amongst us! A varied bunch of “Citizens of The World” with a wide range of skills and hundreds of thousands of kilometers under our travel belts. And we have something important in common (other than our very well-worn passports): We want to change the way people travel.
And that's exactly what we're doing, with the travel app to plan, track, and relive trips in a smart and beautiful way.
Polarsteps has over 20 million users already, but for us, this is just the beginning. We have big plans for the future, and so we need even more talented and enthusiastic people to help us on our journey.
Want to know more about us? Here you go.
Your expedition: Android Development at Polarsteps
We’re a small team, doing big things.
If you haven't seen our app yet, go ahead and check it out; you'll see that we care (a lot) about providing a seamless, top-quality user experience for every one of our travelers. That is how we earned ratings of 4.8 and 4.7 on the app stores (where we've been featured multiple times). But it doesn't stop there. Not only did Google create this awesome video about us, but we've been mentioned in two of Apple's WWDC keynote speeches! And we're one of the top 26 apps for 2026 according to Apple!
We've got an impressive past, but we're even more excited about the future. The impact you can make from day one is huge: everything you ship reaches more than 20 million users. At that scale, we still give our team members the freedom to craft their work with care, while keeping a practical mindset that avoids under- or over-engineering.
The travel industry is growing fast, and with that come both opportunities and growing pains (especially in the complex, multi-layered travel domain). So, if you enjoy thinking about the user experience, performance, and scalability aspects of a platform on top of the challenges inherent to feature development, you're in for a lot of fun with us.
Your itinerary
What your journey at Polarsteps will look like day-to-day.
You will:
- Join one of our small, fast-moving product teams and work closely with Florian, Izadi (our team leads), and the rest of our Android team.
- Work entirely in Kotlin, with Jetpack Compose for the UI (and a bit of Kotlin Multiplatform for the logic we share with iOS and the web).
- Build features end to end, from the first idea to the ticket to the rollout. That includes defining the requirements, tests, CI/CD and docs. After the release, you own the outcome: you check how it works for our travelers and follow up when it does not. This is the biggest part of your week.
- Review and test the work of your colleagues. For us, a good review looks at the design, the architecture and the quality for the user, not only at variable names.
- Shape the product together with product managers, designers and engineers inside and outside your team.
- Modernize our codebase. You help us find the balance between "how a big tech company would do it in a project they started two months ago" and what makes sense for us.
- Take turns managing and monitoring our app releases.
- Use AI tools in your daily work, try new ones early and share with the team what works and what does not.
The equipment in your backpack
What we’re hoping you’ll bring with you.
- You are already based in the Netherlands.
- Solid Kotlin knowledge, including Coroutines and Flows.
- Jetpack Compose, including Navigation.
- A good grip on architecture principles: SOLID, MVVM, clean architecture and multi-module Gradle projects. Our app is offline-first and background-first, because travelers have a talent for finding the one place on earth without signal. So you think about how all parts connect, on the device and beyond it.
- You helped ship an Android app to the Play Store, including several features end to end.
- You write tests for your own work and know which kind fits which situation: unit, screenshot or UI tests.
- Product feel. You think from the user's side, and you have an eye for the small things in UI and UX. Your eyes sparkle when you have just built that amazing new transition animation.
- You use modern AI tools every day. You know what they are good at and where they fall short, you always read what the agent wrote before it ships, and you enjoy trying new approaches.
- You are a team player. You are critical without making it personal, you finish what you start, and you want to learn and grow with us.
- Curiosity about Android, mobile development and travel. Side projects, GitHub, meetups, conferences: show us.
- Bonus points for:
- SQLite / Room
- Screenshot or Espresso UI testing
- Maps or location-based apps (we use Mapbox)
- Kotlin Multiplatform
- Python, Docker or platform architecture
- Experience in a scale-up or startup
- Your own app in the store, ideally with real users
Did you find your way into engineering through a different route? We love that. Detours make the best trips.
Not ticking every box? Please apply anyway. We care more about how you think than about a perfect match.
1st class extras
Some cool things to make the journey extra sweet.
- Salary range: Between EUR 69.000 - 82.000 (medior level) and EUR 85.000 - 100.000 (senior level) gross per year incl 8% holiday allowance (based on 40 hours/week). Where you land in the range depends on your experience and skills, assessed during the interview process.
- Equity: You'll be able to participate in our Polarsteps SAR Plan.
- A yearly free flight or train ride to a random location! Give our Teleporter a spin here.
- A shiny new MacBook to work your magic on.
- Hybrid working, our way. Work from home and the office, we ask everyone to be in the office 2 days a week. It’s how we stay flexible, focused, and meaningfully connected in person.
- An extensive home office set-up — everything from noise-canceling headphones to a standing desk.
- 30 days of vacation (for adventures or sitting on the couch, it's up to you)
- Two paid Culture Days for days that are important to you but not recognized by the official Dutch calendar.-
- The option to switch up your zoom background by working from another country for up to 8 weeks a year.
- A personal development budget for that curious mind of yours!
- A pension plan to help you save for those around-the-world retirement trips.
- Delicious daily team lunches.
- Awesome monthly parties, as well as team trips away.
- A lively office in downtown Amsterdam, with travel costs reimbursed.
- Free Polarsteps Travel Books to contain all your far-flung adventures.
At Polarsteps, we believe the best products are built by people as diverse as the travelers using our apps! That's why we specifically encourage people underrepresented in the tech industry to apply for a role with us. Because we believe that diversity - be it age, race, sexual orientation, physical ability, ethnicity, or gender identity - makes both the world and the workplace better.
Think this is the path for you? Find out more about how we hire.
