Android Engineer · Seattle, WA

Hi, I'm
Rutul Thakkar

Android SDE II · Amazon Alexa+

Building AI-driven Android experiences used by millions worldwide — Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, and Alexa+. Background in serious games research and VR at UC Santa Cruz.

Kotlin Jetpack Compose MVVM Coroutines Kiro MCP
Rutul Thakkar
Years of Experience in Android
0
Customers Reached
0
Daily interactions
0
Markets Shipped
0
Locales Shipped
0

Work Experience

  1. Software Development Engineer II (SDE II)

    Amazon.com, Inc. — Alexa+ Voice Assistant (Android)

    Jan 2022 – Present
    • +211% MoM MAU growth across 11 markets / 14 languages — spearheaded Android Type with Alexa launch, triaged 35 critical bugs under 1 month, fixed a sanitization failure blocking 2 markets; unblocked campaign added +18.6% adoption.
    • Shipped conversation Topics for Alexa+ — cloud-driven topic navigation that lets users jump to anything discussed in long conversations; available to all customers in new markets upon launch.
    • Cut response fault rate ~4% → ~1% — authored fault-analysis context and MCP steps for a team AI agent generating weekly leadership reports, tracking deltas, and auto-cutting tickets to cloud teams; traced ~90% to legacy skills returning audio-only responses.
    • Refactored Alexa+ input field into a reusable composable module using Kiro (agentic AI) — designed for adoption across multiple app surfaces to reduce duplication.
    • Designed a reusable, configurable header component adopted across 3+ Alexa app screens and built for integration by 5+ other Amazon apps — eliminated duplicate variants via optional left/right actions and conditional rendering.
    • Shipped encrypted media playback for a major streaming partner — authored design doc, defended in review with 4 senior engineers, coordinated 4-phase testing across 3 external teams.
    • Go-to expert on feature gating, release pipelines, and app release — onboarding buddy for 4 engineers; authored team-adopted process guides; consulted by L5 peers.
  2. Software Developer

    ASSETS Lab, UC Santa Cruz — SpokeIt

    May 2021 – Mar 2022
    • Implemented speech-to-text recognition using Google Speech API in a Unity/C# Android speech-therapy game; collaborated remotely with a cross-functional team of designers and engineers.
  3. Mobile Developer

    Hubilo Softech Pvt. Ltd.

    Jan 2017 – Jul 2017
    • Cut production time 50% by automating existing processes — delivered features (news feed, attendee list, offline DB, analytics) for 4+ SaaS clients in an agile team.

Projects

Android

Trip Amigo

Led a team of 9 to build a full trip itinerary generator over 4 months. REST APIs for flights, hotels, and restaurants with persistent storage.

JavaSQLiteREST APIsScrum
Android

Twitter Tag

Consumes Twitter4J REST API into a RecyclerView with custom adapter and stores fetched data locally for offline access.

JavaTwitter4JSharedPrefs View ↗
Android

Android Launcher App

Led a team of 3 to build a full Android launcher from client requirements in 8 weeks — app drawer, home screen shortcuts, device info bridge, and search.

JavaXMLJS Bridge View ↗
Game Dev

Spellcasters VR — Stroke Rehabilitation

Co-First Author on ACM TACCESS paper (2022). Led a 14-person team building a gesture-based iVR stroke rehabilitation game. Conducted participatory design with 14 medical professionals.

Unreal EngineBlueprintsResearch View ↗
Game Dev

SpokeIt — Speech Therapy Game

Mobile speech therapy game for UC Santa Cruz ASSETS Lab. Implemented custom speech recognition with Google Speech-to-Text API.

UnityC#Google Speech API View ↗
Game Dev

Icelandic Language Learning Game

Serious game prototype to teach Icelandic children (6–8) to read and write. Touch-based alphabet tracing with Line Renderer.

UnityC#Android
Game Dev

Flu Prevention — Educational Game

Team game raising awareness of flu prevention mechanics. Implemented game manager, medicine mechanics, input detection, and UI elements in one week.

UnityC# View ↗

Skills

Languages

KotlinJavaC#SQLXML

Android

Jetpack ComposeAndroid SDKViewModelCoroutinesFlowStateFlowGlideSQLite

Architecture

MVVMVIPERBuilder PatternRepository PatternDependency Injection

AI & Agentic

KiroAmazon QClineMCP

Networking & Testing

REST APIsRetrofitOkHttpJUnitRobolectricMockKMockito

Game & Research

UnityUnreal EngineVR (Oculus/Vive)Serious Games

Education

M.S. in Serious Games

University of California, Santa Cruz

Sep 2019 – Mar 2021

GPA 4.0 / 4.0 · Google Cloud Award $1,000

Summer — CS Graduate Courses + Silicon Valley Innovation Academy

Stanford University

Jun – Aug 2018

M.S. in Information Technology

Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology

Jul 2015 – May 2017

GPA 8.33 / 10

Bachelor of Computer Applications

Ahmedabad University

Jul 2015 – May 2017

GPA 4.28 / 4.33

Contact

Open to SDE II / Senior Android roles at top-tier tech companies. Feel free to reach out directly or connect on LinkedIn.

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