Senior Principal Engineer Mobile - Long Island City - JetBlue

Description

Position Summary:
The Senior Principal Engineer, Mobile is responsible for defining and executing JetBlue's mobile architecture strategy across iOS and Android platforms, ensuring scalability, performance, and modernization of our mobile ecosystem. This role leads technical design and implementation of complex airline-specific mobile experiences, from real-time flight tracking and check-in to loyalty and payment features, while driving alignment with JetBlue's digital transformation roadmap.
As JetBlue continues to re-platform legacy mobile codebases and transition toward modern, modular architectures, this role serves as a strategic and technical leader guiding modernization across mobile, backend, and cross-channel teams. The Senior Principal Engineer partners with product, design, and platform engineering to deliver secure, high-quality, and performant mobile applications that embody JetBlue's values of safety, caring, integrity, passion, and fun.
Essential Responsibilities:

• Lead architecture, design, and modernization efforts for JetBlue's native iOS (Swift/SwiftUI) and Android (Kotlin/Jetpack Compose) applications.
• Define and implement strategies for replacing legacy codebases with modern, modular, testable architectures following MVVM and Clean Architecture patterns.
• Architect and optimize mobile integration patterns with Azure-hosted microservices, ensuring resilience, authentication (OKTA/JWT/OAuth 2.0), and efficient offline and retry mechanisms.
• Own and evolve shared mobile frameworks and SDK integrations (e.g., AppDynamics, mParticle, FullStory, Braze, ASAPP) to ensure consistent telemetry, analytics, and user experience across platforms.
• Lead performance and reliability initiatives targeting 99.5%+ crash-free rates, sub-2-second launch times, and optimized network performance.
• Establish and champion mobile engineering best practices - dependency injection (Hilt, iOS Containers), testing strategies (unit/UI/integration), CI/CD pipelines (Fastlane, GitHub Actions), and automated release processes.
• Collaborate with backend and product engineering teams to shape mobile API contracts, capability models, and build-vs-buy evaluations for third-party SDKs.
• Drive mobile security practices including certificate pinning, biometric authentication, and secure credential management using platform-specific best practices.
• Mentor and coach iOS, Android, and full stack engineers on modern platform features (e.g., Swift Concurrency, Kotlin Coroutines, declarative UI) and architectural decision making.
• Champion cross-platform consistency, reusable service design, and capability-first engineering across JetBlue's Digital Customer Experience ecosystem.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Experience and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related discipline; OR demonstrated equivalent capability with at least four (4) years of additional relevant experience.
• Six (6) years of professional mobile engineering experience, including large-scale, customer-facing native app delivery.
• Proven experience architecting and delivering enterprise-grade mobile applications using Swift/SwiftUI and Kotlin/Jetpack Compose.
• Deep expertise in mobile architecture design (Clean Architecture, MVVM), modularization, and microservices integration.
• Experience developing and optimizing mobile API communication with secure authentication (OAuth 2.0/JWT) and network resiliency techniques.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD automation for mobile (Fastlane, GitHub Actions, Bitrise, Jenkins) and test frameworks (XCTest, Espresso).
• Proficiency in cloud and backend integration with Azure or equivalent (AWS/GCP) platforms.
• Subject matter expertise in mobile observability and performance monitoring using AppDynamics, Firebase, or similar tools.
• Strong mentorship skills and experience influencing technical direction across multi-platform engineering teams.
• Available for moderate overnight travel (up to 10%).
• Must pass a pre-employment drug test.
• Legally eligible to work in the country in which the position is located.
• Authorization to work in the US is required, this position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Preferred Experience and Qualifications:

• Eight (8) or more years of professional mobile development experience in enterprise environments.
• Demonstrated leadership in multi-platform modernization initiatives, including cap-and-grow or large-scale codebase re-architecture.
• Experience with feature flagging, A/B testing frameworks, and mobile-first capability rollout strategies.
• Deep understanding of security and compliance for mobile applications (e.g., PCI, GDPR).
• Experience in Agile software development and cross-functional collaboration across engineering, product, and design.

Crewmember Expectations:

• Regular attendance and punctuality.
• Potential need to work flexible hours and be available to respond on short-notice
• Able to maintain a professional appearance.
• When working or traveling on JetBlue flights, and if time permits, all capable crewmembers are asked to assist with light cleaning of the aircraft.
• Must be an appropriate organizational fit for the JetBlue culture, that is, exhibit the JetBlue values of Safety, Caring, Integrity, Passion and Fun.
• Promote JetBlue's #1 value of safety as a Safety Ambassador, supporting JetBlue's Safety Management System (SMS) components, Safety Policy and behavioral standards.
• Identify safety and/or security concerns, issues, incidents or hazards that should be reported and report them whenever possible and by any means necessary including JetBlue's confidential reporting systems (Aviation Safety Action Program (ASAP) or Safety Action Report (SAR)).
• The use of ChatGPT or any other automated tool during the interview process will disqualify a candidate from being considered for the position.

Equipment:

• Computer and other office equipment.

Work Environment:

• Traditional office environment.

Physical Effort:

• Generally not required, or up to 10 pounds occasionally, 0 pounds frequently (Sedentary).

Compensation:

• The base pay range for this position is between $134,600.00 and $210,100.00 per year. Base pay is one component of JetBlue's total compensation package, which may also include performance bonuses, restricted stock units, as well as access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, crewmember stock purchase plan, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, free space available travel on JetBlue, and more.

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