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Manager, IT Native Mobile Development

The route to becoming an experienced Manager, IT Native Mobile Development: leading the Native Mobile Unit and taking end-to-end technical ownership of Android and iOS apps.

📅 12 months🧭 4 phases✅ 39 tasks✍️ Hang Daro

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This role is not just "a good mobile developer". It asks for someone who owns Android and iOS end to end: the code, the builds, the releases, the incidents and the people. Most job posts for it also prefer banking or payments experience, where mistakes cost real money.

Below is the plan I'd follow for one year. It starts from strong Android skills (where I am today), fills the iOS gap first, then goes through hybrid apps, content updates, performance, security, releases, leadership and incidents. Every month ends with something you can show in an interview, because the job post asks for proof and "a clear explanation of your personal contribution".

How to use this plan
  • About 8–10 hours a week next to your job: 2 evenings + one weekend block.
  • Tick tasks as you go. Your progress is saved in this browser.
  • Keep a "brag document": each month write what you did, the numbers, and what YOU decided.
  • Use real work where you can. A fix shipped at your job beats any side project.

Phase 1 · Become truly two-platform

  1. Android depth check

    🎯 Be able to explain Android internals clearly, not just use them.

    Learn

    Activity / Fragment / process lifecycleProcess death & SavedStateHandleCoroutines, Flow, structured concurrencyWorkManager & foreground servicesMemory: LeakCanary, heap dumpsRoom, DataStore, file storage

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: A short write-up: "How my app survives process death"

  2. Swift & iOS foundations

    🎯 Read and write everyday iOS code with confidence.

    Learn

    Swift: optionals, value vs reference types, protocolsSwiftUI + UIKit basicsApp & scene lifecycleasync/await, actors, GCDARC & retain cyclesURLSession, Codable, Keychain

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: A small iOS app on GitHub with a README

  3. iOS in production

    🎯 Be able to build, sign, ship and debug an iOS app alone.

    Learn

    Xcode schemes, configurations, xcconfigCertificates, provisioning profiles, App IDsTestFlight & App Store ConnectInstruments: Time Profiler, Leaks, AllocationsBGTaskScheduler, background URLSessionFileManager, Core Data / SwiftData

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: TestFlight link + notes on signing and build setup

Phase 2 · The hard parts of this job

  1. Hybrid apps: WebView & JS bridges

    🎯 Design a safe, versioned bridge between native and web.

    Learn

    Android WebView, WebViewAssetLoader, addJavascriptInterface risksWKWebView, WKScriptMessageHandler, WKURLSchemeHandlerBridge protocol: JSON messages, request ids, callbacks, versionsOrigin allow-lists, no secrets in JSFlutter platform channels / native pluginsWebView warm-up and caching

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Demo repo + bridge spec document

  2. Content download & safe updates

    🎯 Update web bundles or assets without ever breaking the app.

    Learn

    HTTP Range, ETag, resumable downloadsSHA-256 checksums + signature checkAtomic replace: download → verify → renameA/B slots and rollbackManifest with minAppVersion / compatibilityWorkManager & background URLSession for big files

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: A diagram + test results of the failure cases

  3. Performance on slow networks

    🎯 Measure first, then make startup, memory and network faster.

    Learn

    Startup: Baseline Profiles, App Startup, iOS pre-mainANRs: StrictMode, Perfetto, main-thread workLarge images & assetsTimeouts, retry with backoff, request de-duplicationNetwork Link Conditioner / emulator throttlingCrashlytics or Sentry dashboards

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: A before/after report with numbers

Phase 3 · Bank-grade engineering

  1. Mobile security for fintech

    🎯 Think like an attacker and protect money and data.

    Learn

    OWASP MASVS & MASTGAndroid Keystore, iOS Keychain & Secure EnclaveAES-GCM, key handling, no hard-coded secretsCertificate pinning, TLSPlay Integrity, App Attest, root/jailbreak checksR8 / obfuscation, FLAG_SECURE, biometricsPCI DSS basics, NBC (National Bank of Cambodia) tech-risk rules, KHQR/Bakong

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Threat model + security checklist your team can reuse

  2. Releases, signing & CI/CD

    🎯 Releases become boring: automatic, staged and reversible.

    Learn

    Gradle: build types, flavors, version catalogsXcode: schemes, configs, build settingsfastlane, GitHub Actions / BitriseKeeping signing keys & secrets safe in CIPlay staged rollout & halt, App Store phased releaseHotfix branches; rollback with remote config / kill switchHuawei AppGallery, HMS Core vs Google services

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Pipeline config + release / hotfix / rollback playbook

  3. APIs, testing & SDKs

    🎯 Changes are safe because tests catch mistakes first.

    Learn

    REST design, OpenAPI contracts, error modelsJUnit, Compose UI tests, EspressoXCTest, XCUITestFakes vs mocks, test pyramidCoverage gates in CIChecklist for adding third-party SDKs (size, privacy, security)

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Test strategy document + coverage numbers

Phase 4 · Lead the unit

  1. Leading & mentoring

    🎯 Make the whole team better, not only your own code.

    Learn

    Code review: what to look for, how to say it kindlyCoding standards & Architecture Decision Records (ADR)Writing an RFC and running a tech discussion1:1s, pairing, giving feedbackEstimating and splitting work

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: A "Native Mobile Handbook" for the team

  2. Production incidents

    🎯 Stay calm in an outage and stop it happening again.

    Learn

    Severity levels & incident rolesTimeline, impact, root cause (5 Whys, fishbone)Corrective & preventive actions (CAPA)Blameless postmortemsReporting to management in plain English

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Incident process + 2 postmortems

  3. Show it & apply

    🎯 Turn the year into a story a hiring panel believes.

    Learn

    STAR answers (Situation, Task, Action, Result)Mobile system design: "design a banking app", "design a content update system"Presenting to management and vendorsCV & LinkedIn with numbers

    Do

    🏆 Proof for your interview: Case studies + updated CV

Does the plan cover the whole job post?

Deep in one native platform, able to review the other
Leading, mentoring, code reviews, standards
Shipped apps on Android and iOS, with your own contribution
Lifecycle, state, background, async, memory, storage
WebView, JS bridges, native plugins
Downloads, caching, resume, integrity, atomic swap, rollback
Startup, memory, WebView, ANRs on bad networks
Store releases, signing, CI/CD, staged rollout, AppGallery
REST, testing, crash monitoring, security, SDKs
Incident analysis, root cause, CAPA, reports
Banking, fintech, payments
Good English with management and vendors

Habits for the whole year

  • Every day: 20 minutes of English (read docs aloud, write your daily update in English).
  • Every week: read one real codebase (Android or iOS open source) for 1 hour.
  • Every month: publish one blog post about what you built. Teaching is proof.
  • Every quarter: re-score yourself against the job post.

One last tip: Flutter or React Native is a bonus, but this role wants real Kotlin and Swift. Keep both native platforms at the centre of everything you build this year.