Principal Software App Engineer, Yahoo Mail

Yahoo Mail is the ultimate consumer inbox with hundreds of millions of users. It’s the best way to access your email and stay organized from a computer, phone or tablet. With its beautiful design and lightning fast speed, Yahoo Mail makes reading, organizing, and sending emails easier than ever.

A little about us

The Yahoo Mail team builds and maintains high-impact mobile and web experiences serving hundreds of millions of active users globally. As part of our mission to create the ultimate consumer platform for managing the "business of life," our mobile engineering group drives innovation across iOS, Android, and React Native platforms. We combine rapid iteration with deep engineering rigor to deliver modern, resilient, 4.5+ star application experiences.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term technical vision, multi-year architecture, and engineering roadmap for Yahoo Mail’s mobile platform across Android, iOS, and React Native.

• Lead the evaluation, adoption, and governance of AI-assisted software development practices (e.g., agentic workflows, prompt-driven prototyping, AI pair-programming) to maximize team velocity and code quality.

• Incorporate AI-powered coding and refactoring tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) into cross-platform mobile development workflows to accelerate feature delivery and reduce technical debt.

• Drive engineering excellence by conducting architecture reviews, system design audits, and automated code reviews across native and cross-platform codebases.

• Partner with Product, Design, Data, Infrastructure, and Backend Engineering to architect high-performance, cross-platform mobile features and evaluate AI/GenAI product capabilities.

• Own foundational mobile platform decisions, optimizing code reusability across React Native and native codebases (Kotlin/Java, Swift/Objective-C) while maintaining native performance standards.

• Drive operational excellence using modern AI-assisted observability, automated performance profiling, and incident diagnostic tools to maintain high availability for millions of concurrent users.

• Architect automated testing strategies, CI/CD pipelines, and agentic quality-assurance workflows to ensure secure, rapid mobile application release cycles.

• Mentor senior and staff engineers, fostering an AI-forward culture of technical mastery, continuous learning, and architectural innovation.

Basic Qualifications

• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science (or equivalent practical experience) with 10+ years of experience architecting and shipping large-scale consumer mobile applications.

• Deep technical expertise in native Android (Kotlin/Java) or native iOS (Swift/Objective-C), alongside hands-on production experience with React Native.

• Strong Computer Science foundation including distributed systems, mobile architecture patterns, data structures, performance optimization, and modular code design.

• Hands-on proficiency with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini) embedded in daily engineering workflows and code review processes.

• Proven experience utilizing CLI and cloud-based AI agent workflows to automate multi-file refactoring, code quality checks, and architectural validation.

• Experience designing and consuming robust APIs (RESTful, GraphQL) and integrating third-party mobile SDKs at scale.

• Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional technical initiatives, mentoring senior technical leaders, and championing software engineering best practices.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing, building, or evaluating GenAI capabilities, intelligent mail workflows, or machine learning features within mobile consumer applications.

• Proven track record of building reusable mobile platforms, SDKs, or shared core infrastructure utilized across multiple product teams.

• Mastery of JavaScript/TypeScript, React Native runtime optimization, and modern web/mobile build systems.

• Direct experience shipping and maintaining top-chart consumer applications on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

• Comfort operating in dynamic, AI-augmented product environments with an openness to experimentation and workflow automation.

Important notes for your attention

Applications: 

All applicants must apply for Yahoo openings direct with Yahoo.  We do not authorize any external agencies in India to handle candidates’ applications.   No agency nor individual may charge candidates for any efforts they make on an applicant’s behalf in the hiring process.  

Our internal recruiters will reach out to you directly to discuss the next steps if we determine that the role is a good fit for you.  Selected candidates will go through formal interviews and assessments arranged by Yahoo direct.  

Offer Distributions: 

Our electronic offer letter and documents will be issued through our system for e-signatures, not via individual emails.

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

Yahoo has a high degree of flexibility around employee location and hybrid working. In fact, our flexible-hybrid approach to work is one of the things our employees rave about. Most roles don’t require specific regular patterns of in-person office attendance. If you join Yahoo, you may be asked to attend (or travel to attend) on-site work sessions, team-building, or other in-person events. When these occur, you’ll be given notice to make arrangements. 

If you’re curious about how this factors into this role, please discuss with the recruiter.

Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.