Available for senior / lead Android roles · immediate start
800K+ Play installs 7+ yrs Kotlin Remote GCC & EU
Ahsan Islam
Senior mobile engineer Android · Kotlin · Compose
Targeting Senior / Staff Android · platform & mobile lead · GCC & EU remote
Seven years of production Android delivery in Kotlin. Specialised in white-label commerce platforms, payment gateway integration, BLE hardware companions, wearables and production computer vision, delivered for teams in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Summary tap to expand
- Role
- Senior / Lead mobile engineer (Android)
- Core stack
- Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Clean Architecture, SOLID, MVI
- Also shipped
- Kotlin Multiplatform — one Compose codebase live on Google Play for Android, iOS and web
- Ramp-up
- First Kotlin Multiplatform project taken from zero to a published Play release
- Availability
- Immediate — full-time or contract
- Based in
- Lahore, Pakistan · UTC+5, daily overlap with GCC and Europe
- Work setup
- Remote across EU and GCC time zones
- Track record
- 800K+ Google Play installs across live production apps
Shipped and live on Google Play
See more
01 — About
Profile
Lahore, Pakistan · Remote
Working with Abu Dhabi, UAE
English · Urdu · Punjabi
Senior Android engineer (Kotlin / Jetpack Compose) with 7+ years shipping production apps — 800K+ Google Play installs across F&B white-label, fintech checkout, BLE companions and health wearables. Lead Android on the COFE white-label platform (Abu Dhabi, remote): one Kotlin/Compose codebase, 12+ branded apps including Barns at 100K+ installs in KSA.
Earlier at Ozoned: five bank and wallet gateways behind one checkout (+50% transaction success), the Insurance Bazaar marketplace, Jubilee i-Insure and Jubilee/Adamjee agent apps, Jubilee Active health sync across four wearable platforms, and the team that placed 2nd of 25 in the AWS & Epiphany AI/ML Reactor. Also shipped Kotlin Multiplatform to Play — one Compose UI on Android, iOS and Wasm web.
02 — Credentials
Certifications & recognition
AWS AI/ML Reactor (2nd of 25), Ozoned Employee of the Month and Quarter, and LinkedIn recommendations from a direct manager and peer engineers.
BSc Computer Software Engineering
University of Central Punjab · 2014 — 2017
AWS & Epiphany AI/ML Startup Reactor
Led the team that placed 2nd of 25 companies nationally. The certificates appear in the recognition section below.
Java Certification
Recognition
Awards & certificates
Photo proof you can open full-size — AWS Reactor placement, Ozoned awards, SoloLearn Java.
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AI/ML Reactor certificate
AWS and Epiphany, 2022 · Ozoned Digital placed 2nd of 25 companies nationally, with Ahsan Islam leading the team
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Certificate of Appreciation
Ozoned Digital · awarded for contribution to the AWS AI/ML competition, signed by the co-founder and CEO
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Java course certificate
SoloLearn, issued 13 September 2017 · certificate CT-ZCTW1L1E, verifiable online
Recommendations
LinkedIn recommendations
Manager and peer feedback on LinkedIn — separate from Upwork marketplace reviews.
“Ahsan is leading mobile development on our product from the ground up — building the Android app from scratch as our full mobile lead. He owns architecture decisions end-to-end, writes clean, scalable Kotlin code, and moves fast without cutting corners. His Compose and Clean Architecture instincts mean the app stays maintainable even as we add features quickly. Beyond code, he thinks about the product, not just the ticket — flags issues before they become problems and gets things shipped. Any team would be lucky to have him leading their mobile stack.”
“Ahsan's a great Android developer. He's adaptable and accountable. His problem-solving skills and focus was exceptional. He did an incredible job to all the tasks involved in our company. He's always welcoming feedback and making improvements. I highly recommend Ahsan for his dedication, professionalism, and ability to deliver results.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Ahsan in the COFE app. His exceptional attention to detail and approach to complex problem solving were instrumental in the product success. I am sure that any organization will be lucky to have Ahsan working with them.”
03 — Experience
Professional experience
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Senior Android Developer
Sep 2023 — PresentCOFE App · Abu Dhabi, UAE (remote)
- Deliver 12+ brand apps from one Kotlin/Compose codebase using per-brand vendor configurators on a shared vendor-app framework.
- Subway Kuwait (ongoing) — white-label brand module: foldable multi-pane menu UX, monorepo migration into the shared platform, Chucker + shake-to-report for QA.
- Own the payment layer: two gateway SDKs behind one provider abstraction — Tap Payments GoSell and Checkout.com Frames — plus Google Pay, tokenised saved cards and wallet/gift-card tender.
- 40+ Gradle feature modules — cart, checkout, order tracking, subscriptions with auto-renewal, wallet top-up, rewards, referrals, coupons and surge pricing.
- Apollo GraphQL per brand, REST over OkHttp, SQLDelight caching with migrations, Koin, Compose with MVVM/StateFlow.
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Android Developer
Mar 2024 — Mar 2025Tatayab.com · Kuwait (remote contract)
- Freelance Android on Kuwait’s largest perfumes and beauty e-commerce app — 20,000+ products, 100K+ Play installs.
- Catalog, search and bundles; product detail with variants and reviews; cart, multi-payment checkout, order tracking; profile, wallet and loyalty.
- Kotlin, REST APIs, payment gateways, Firebase. Case study.
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Senior Android Engineer
Jun 2024 — Sep 2024Cappella · Cambridge, MA (remote contract)
- Finished and shipped the Android app — AI cry detection, two-phone baby monitor, feeding/sleep/diaper tracking, soothing sounds.
- Integrated on-device voice ML (mic capture → inference → parent alerts); closed launch blockers and Play Store readiness.
- Google Play launch July 2024. Case study.
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Senior Android Developer
Feb 2021 — Sep 2023Ozoned Digital · Lahore, Pakistan
- Built server-driven UI that cut load times ~30% and let product ship without releases.
- Integrated 5 payment gateways — three bank and two mobile-wallet providers behind one checkout — for +50% transaction success.
- Shipped Insurance Bazaar marketplace plus Jubilee i-Insure, Jubilee Agent Hub and Adamjee Field App for insurer and agent channels.
- OCR for national ID / driving licence capture; Amazon Rekognition for AI vehicle damage assessment.
- Health data sync across 4 health and wearable platforms.
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Senior Android Developer
Sep 2017 — Feb 2021Xeon Technologies · Lahore, Pakistan
- Improved sensor accuracy 25% with BLE tyre-pressure sensor communication.
- Shipped OTA firmware upgrades driven straight from the Android app.
- Firebase chat with image, video, audio, file and location payloads.
- AdMob mediation & waterfall, Play Store policy compliance, Node.js APIs on the side.
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Android Developer
May 2017 — Jul 2017RoboArt · Lahore, Pakistan
- IoT device connectivity over Bluetooth, Google APIs, Firebase DB & notifications, location services.
04 — Work
Shipped work
COFE/Barns white-label in the GCC, Tatayab Kuwait e-commerce, Insurance Bazaar marketplace, Jubilee i-Insure and agent apps, multi-gateway payments and on-device cry detection — what shipped and what moved the numbers.
White-label · F&B · Saudi Arabia
Barns
100K+ installs from one codebaseConfiguration over forking — one Kotlin/Compose build, branded app per coffee chain
Menu, loyalty, pickup and payments for one of Saudi Arabia's largest coffee chains — shipped from the shared white-label platform behind 12+ live brands.
100K+downloads
Read case study
Contract · E-commerce · Kuwait · Mar 2024 — Mar 2025
Tatayab
100K+ · 20,000+ productsFull shopping flow — catalog, PDP, checkout, payments and rewards
Kuwait’s largest perfumes and beauty e-commerce app — freelance Android work across browse, product detail, cart, multi-payment checkout and loyalty.
100K+downloads
Read case study
Marketplace · GCC
COFE platform
Kuwait, KSA, UAE, Turkey500K+ installs · 12+ brand apps, two gateway SDKs, one codebase
Multi-brand marketplace — delivery, click-and-collect, loyalty and cross-brand rewards from the platform that spawned the white-label architecture.
500K+downloads
Read case study
Health · Wearables · Pakistan
Jubilee Active
Policy discounts from verified activity4 health platforms reconciled into one defensible daily total
Google Fit, Health Connect, Samsung Health and Garmin behind one trust-priority mapper — activity points redeemable against insurance discounts.
100K+downloads
Read case study
Insurtech · Marketplace · Pakistan
Insurance Bazaar
Compare and buy policies onlineMulti-insurer marketplace — plans side by side, purchase in-app
Ozoned Digital marketplace for comparing insurance plans across carriers and completing purchase online — built for Pakistan's consumer insurtech channel.
Read case study
Insurtech · Customer · Pakistan
Jubilee i-Insure
Paperless insurance end to endAccount → plan → pay → claim in one customer app
End-to-end paperless insurance for Jubilee Life — plan selection, online and cash-on-delivery payments, policy servicing, claim intimation and panel hospital lookup.
10K+downloads
Read case study
Payments · GCC checkout
Payment gateway layer
KNET, mada, STC Pay and five gateways+50% transaction success after one sealed result type across SDKs
Tap Payments and Checkout.com behind one provider abstraction — transient failures retried, real declines surfaced to the customer.
Read case study
AI · Voice ML · Parenting
Cappella
On-device baby cry detectionPlay launch · named on LinkedIn launch post
MIT-founded AI baby-care app — cry translator, two-phone monitor, care tracking. Shipped Android; startup later wound down after non-funding.
Read case study
Also available for contract work — Top Rated Plus on Upwork (100% Job Success · 56 contracts · 2,203 hrs · 36 reviews @ 5.0).
FAQ
Common questions
Quick answers for recruiters hiring senior Android / Kotlin / Compose remotely in EU or GCC.
Who is Ahsan Islam?
Senior Android engineer in Lahore (remote EU/GCC), lead on COFE’s white-label Kotlin/Compose platform. 7+ years, 800K+ Play installs. Full profile: ahsan-islam.html.
Are you a Kotlin Multiplatform developer?
Yes — Income Tax Calculator ships Compose Multiplatform on Android, iOS and Wasm web. Details on the KMP developer page.
Are you available for senior Android roles now?
Yes — immediate start for senior or lead Android engineering roles, remote across EU and GCC time zones.
What is your remote setup and time zone?
Lahore, Pakistan (UTC+5). Three years fully remote with an Abu Dhabi Scrum team. Daily written updates and committed estimates.
Do you build native iOS or Flutter apps?
No native Swift or commercial Flutter/React Native. iOS is delivered through Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform where appropriate.
05 — Contact
Contact
Hiring for senior or lead Android (Kotlin / Compose), remote EU or GCC? Same-day replies — book a call or WhatsApp.
Full app portfolio (18+ on Google Play)
Apps
Shipped applications
All published on Google Play. Screenshots and install counts are taken directly from the public listings.
2023 → now · COFE App, Abu Dhabi
Barns
Food & drink · Saudi Arabia · 100K+Covered in case studies above — Play listing · full write-up.
Ongoing · COFE App, Abu Dhabi
Subway Kuwait
Food & drink · white-label brand module · OngoingCOFE white-label brand module for Subway Kuwait (pickup, menu, customise). Foldable multi-pane layout; monorepo migration; Chucker + shake-to-report for QA. Unlinked — the live Play listing is published by another vendor.
Mar 2024 → Mar 2025 · Tatayab.com, Kuwait (contract)
Tatayab
Shopping · Perfumes & beauty · Kuwait · 100K+Covered in case studies above — Play listing · full write-up.
2023 → now · COFE App, Abu Dhabi
COFE
Food & drink · Kuwait, KSA, UAE, Turkey500K+ installs · 2 gateway SDKs, 12+ brand apps, one codebase
The flagship marketplace from which the white-label platform originated: dozens of coffee brands in a single application, with delivery, click-and-collect, virtual drive-thru, catering, in-app credit and cross-brand rewards across Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey.
How it was built
The constraint. Checkout ran across multiple payment gateway SDKs, each reporting failure in its own vocabulary — exceptions from one, status strings from another, some reasons arriving only by webhook. No shared retry policy could be written against that.
The decision. Every gateway was placed behind one sealed result type that distinguishes a genuine decline from a recoverable, transient failure. Transient failures are retried; only real declines are shown to the customer.
The result. Customers were previously told a payment had failed when the network had simply hiccupped, and most did not try a second time. Correcting that lifted transaction success by roughly 50%.
2022 → 2023 · Ozoned Digital, Lahore
Jubilee Active
Health & fitness · Pakistan4 health platforms synced — Google Fit, Health Connect, Samsung Health, Garmin
Health and fitness tracking application for Jubilee Life Insurance. Step and calorie tracking integrated with Google Fit, Health Connect, Samsung Health and Garmin, with walking challenges and activity points redeemable against policy discounts.
How it was built
The constraint. Activity points converted into real policy discounts, so the step count had to be defensible. Reading Google Fit, Health Connect, Samsung Health and Garmin and summing them counted the same walk two or three times over.
The decision. Each platform sits behind one ActivitySource interface with a trust priority, and every reading is normalised by a dedicated mapper. Overlapping time windows are resolved once in the domain layer by that priority, so a walk recorded by both a watch and a phone becomes a single entry.
The result. One reconciled figure per day that both the insurer and the customer could rely on, with new platforms added by implementing a single interface.
2021 → 2023 · Ozoned Digital, Lahore
Insurance Bazaar
Insurance marketplace · PakistanMulti-insurer marketplace — compare plans and buy online
Consumer insurance marketplace built at Ozoned Digital: compare plans across insurers and complete purchase in-app. Separate from State Life's SLIC Digital channel (withdrawn from Play in June 2025).
2021 → 2023 · Ozoned Digital, Lahore
Jubilee i-Insure
Customer insurtech · PakistanPaperless insurance — account, plan, payment, claims and hospitals
End-to-end customer app for Jubilee Life Insurance: account creation, plan selection, online and cash-on-delivery payments, document archives, policy servicing, claim intimation and panel hospital lookup.
AWS & Epiphany · 2nd of 25
AI vehicle damage assessment
Computer vision · competition build+80% recognition accuracy · 2nd of 25 companies nationally
Camera-based vehicle damage assessment built on Amazon Rekognition with on-device capture and OCR pipelines. Delivered 80% higher recognition accuracy and placed 2nd of 25 companies nationally in the AWS and Epiphany AI/ML Startup Reactor competition.
Competition project · not publicly released
2024 · Cappella, Cambridge MA (remote)
Cappella
AI parenting · voice MLGoogle Play · Jul 2024 launch
MIT-founded AI baby-care app: on-device cry detection, two-phone monitor, feeding/sleep/diaper tracking and soothing sounds. Finished Kotlin + Java ML integration as senior Android (contract). Credited on the founder’s Android launch LinkedIn post. Startup later wound down after non-funding.
Removed from Play · Nov 2024
Read case study
Payments
Payment integrations delivered
Two production gateway SDKs sit behind a single PaymentProvider abstraction, so entering a new market requires adding a provider implementation rather than modifying checkout. Every item below is wired end to end through a live checkout. Read the payment case study →
Gateway SDKs integrated
- Tap Payments GoSell
- Checkout.com Frames
- Google Pay
- Google Play Billing
Tokenisation, charge and authorise, saved cards, themed SDK sessions, environment switching, network error handling.
Supported payment methods
- KNET
- Benefit
- mada
- STC Pay
- Tami
- Amex
- Visa · Mastercard
- Tabby BNPL
- Apple Pay scheme
- Wallet balance
- Gift cards
- Cash on delivery
Includes add-card and tokenised saved-card flows. Tabby is routed through the gateway and the Apple Pay scheme exists for backend parity; neither is an Android SDK integration on this side.
White-label platform
Brand applications on the shared platform
One Kotlin/Compose codebase carries 12+ brand modules, each configured by its own vendor configurator into a separate build with distinct identity, menu, loyalty rules and payment setup. The following brands were confirmed live on Google Play:
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Caribou Rewards ↗
UAE & Kuwait · coffee loyalty
Order ahead, curbside pickup and a points-based rewards programme for Caribou's Gulf stores.
10K+ downloads
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Kyan ↗
Saudi Arabia · Arabian coffee
Pickup and curbside ordering with an in-app wallet, gift cards and a stamp-card rewards scheme, bilingual EN/AR.
50K+ downloads
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FiLLi ↗
UAE · tea & café
Pickup and delivery for FiLLi Cafe's chai menu, with loyalty points and shareable gift cards.
10K+ downloads
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Pret A Manger ↗
Kuwait · coffee & food
Tiered rewards, a digital wallet, in-app games and pickup, office or doorstep delivery for Pret's Kuwait market.
5K+ downloads
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Darat Al Qahwa ↗
Saudi Arabia · speciality roaster
The first digital channel for a Saudi coffee house founded in 1970, covering menu, order tracking, gift cards and a stamp-card loyalty programme.
1K+ downloads
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Barn's X ↗
Saudi Arabia · express coffee
The express format of the Barns brand, published as a separate listing from the same platform build.
1K+ downloads
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20 Grams ↗
Gulf · speciality coffee
Speciality-coffee ordering and loyalty for the 20 Grams brand, configured from the shared codebase.
1K+ downloads
Unlisted brand modules
Additional brand modules on the platform
These brands also have modules in the same codebase, but no live Google Play listing published by COFE could be confirmed. They are recorded here as engineering work rather than linked as published applications. Subway Kuwait is ongoing.
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Subway Kuwait
Kuwait · COFE white-label · ongoing
Brand module on the shared Kotlin/Compose platform: foldable multi-pane menu UX, monorepo migration, Chucker + shake-to-report for QA. No Play link — live listing is published by another vendor.
Ongoing
Earlier and adjacent work
Other delivered applications
Additional delivered work across insurtech, retail and connected hardware, all currently or previously published on Google Play.
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Cappella
United States · AI parenting
AI baby-care Android app with on-device voice ML cry detection, two-phone monitor, care tracking and soothing sounds. Play launch July 2024; credited on the founder’s LinkedIn launch post. Listing later removed after the company wound down.
Case study
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Income Tax Calculator ↗
Finance · 10 countries
Take-home pay calculation across ten tax systems, delivered from one Compose Multiplatform codebase to Android, iOS and Wasm web, with tax rules served as versioned packs from Postgres rather than shipped in app releases.
Kotlin Multiplatform
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Classmate Playdate ↗
United States · parenting
School directory and playdate scheduler for parents, built across approximately 50 Gradle modules with the full Play Billing subscription lifecycle and Socket.IO chat.
Play Billing
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Jubilee i-Insure ↗
Pakistan · customer insurtech
End-to-end paperless insurance: account creation, plan selection, online and cash-on-delivery payments, document archives, policy servicing, claim intimation and panel hospital lookup.
10K+ downloads
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Jubilee Agent Hub ↗
Pakistan · agent super-app
Field-sales agent application for Jubilee Life Insurance — leads, proposals and policy workflows in one Android app (primary Jubilee agent app shipped at Ozoned).
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iXchange UP ↗
BLE hardware companion
Companion application for iXchange® headsets: automatic Bluetooth pairing, live battery telemetry, call and device-loss alerts, find-my-device, and over-the-air firmware upgrades. The same BLE work raised tyre-pressure sensor accuracy by 25%.
5K+ downloads
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Insurance Bazaar ↗
Pakistan · insurance marketplace
Multi-insurer marketplace for comparing plans and completing purchase online — Ozoned Digital's consumer insurtech channel.
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Adamjee Field App ↗
Pakistan · agent field app
Field agent application for Adamjee Insurance — on-the-ground sales and policy support workflows (distinct from State Life / SLIC).
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SLIC Digital
Pakistan · State Life
State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan digital channel with CNIC OCR capture and online premium payments. Built at Ozoned alongside Insurance Bazaar; withdrawn from Google Play in June 2025.
Withdrawn
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Karachi Brand Studio ↗
Pakistan · lawn & fashion retail
Retail storefront built natively with Kotlin Multiplatform, with shared business logic behind browsing and product detail flows for a lawn and fashion catalogue.
Kotlin Multiplatform
Download figures above are Google Play's published install ranges, recorded from the live listings on 31 Aug 2026. They describe each application as a whole, including store operations, backend, content and marketing, rather than the contribution of any single engineer.
Stack
Technical stack
KotlinJetpack ComposeClean ArchitecturePaymentsSecurityKMPBLECI/CDGraphQL
Security engineering
Mobile Security Engineering
Financial-grade mobile security is a foundation, not an afterthought — shaped by insurtech and fintech checkout work at Ozoned Digital (JazzCash, Easypaisa, UBL, Meezan, Alfalah) and hardened payment flows on the COFE white-label platform.
SSL Certificate Pinning
OkHttp certificate and public-key pinning on sensitive API traffic to reduce MITM risk on mobile networks.
Root Detection
Device-integrity checks that gate high-risk flows when the environment looks compromised or rooted.
Secure Token Storage
Android Keystore with EncryptedSharedPreferences for hardware-backed credentials and session material.
Secure API Comms
TLS-only clients, careful token handling, and request patterns that resist replay on payment and account endpoints.
Biometric Auth
BiometricPrompt with cryptographic key binding for step-up auth on wallets, saved cards, and account recovery.
App Hardening
R8/ProGuard obfuscation, stripped debug surfaces, and release builds that keep payment and auth code harder to reverse.
Payment Security
Gateway integrations for JazzCash, Easypaisa, UBL, Meezan and Alfalah — tokenised cards, encrypted payloads, and checkout paths that keep PAN out of app memory where the SDK allows.
Fraud Prevention
Risk-aware checkout: recoverable network failures separated from hard declines (linked to a ~50% lift in transaction success), plus integrity checks that reduce abuse on payment and loyalty surfaces.
Full stack in résumé PDF · expand app portfolio above for Play listings.