Khairul Alam

Software Engineer (Android)
11+ Years Building Scalable Mobile Applications

Tokyo, Japan · Currently at Rakuten

I'm passionate about building thoughtful digital experiences where great design, solid engineering, and real-world impact come together. I believe the best products are not only functional and reliable, but also intuitive, purposeful, and carefully crafted.

With 11+ years across Japan, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, I specialise in scalable Android applications, SDKs, and platform capabilities — spanning Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Clean Architecture, and large-scale mobile ecosystems. I enjoy turning complex challenges into simple, maintainable solutions, and I'm continuously exploring how AI-assisted development can enhance engineering workflows.

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Work Experience

PeriodDurationCompanyLocation

Feb 2020 – Present

Rakuten, Inc.

Senior Software Engineer (Android)

Tokyo, Japan

Feb 2018 – Jan 2020

2 yrs

Mercari, Inc.

Software Engineer (Android)

Tokyo, Japan

Aug 2015 – Jan 2018

2 yrs 6 mos

Sun Asterisk Vietnam Co., Ltd.

Software Engineer (Android)

Hanoi, Vietnam

Nov 2014 – Jul 2015

9 mos

Lantas Technologies, Inc.

Software Engineer (Android)

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Technical Skills

Skills

Kotlin Java MVVM MVP Redux ⬡Clean Architecture ⬡Clean Code ⬡SOLID Modularization Design Language System MiniApps React JavaScript
Android SDK Jetpack Compose ViewModel LiveData Room Navigation KTX Widget Coroutines Flow RxJava Dagger Hilt Kodein ⬡Retrofit ⬡OkHttp ⬡Moshi gRPC Glide Coil ⬡Braze Salesforce In-App Purchase Firebase Crashlytics Firebase Analytics Firebase Remote Config Firebase Performance Firebase App Distribution Firebase A/B Testing
JUnit Robolectric Mockito Kluent Appium Codecov LeakCanary Timber Stetho Postman ⬡Charles Proxy
CircleCI GitHub Actions DeployGate AppCenter Google Play Console
Jira Figma Zapier Git GitHub Slack
✦Claude Code ✦Codex ✦AI-Assisted Development ✦AI Debugging & Log Analysis ✦Token-Efficient LLM Workflows

Open Source

Mobile Design System

A small, opinionated, View-based design system for Android in Kotlin, with no Jetpack Compose dependency. Three tiers of tokens, one theme for many brands, light and dark from the same tokens, and accessibility as a default. Built to be read, copied and adapted. Contributions are welcome: fork the repo and open a pull request.

AndroidKotlinDesign systemDesign tokensAccessibility

GitHub ↗ Docs ↗ How to contribute ↗

Technical Writing

Articles9 posts

ArticleNEW

Build Your Own Android Studio Plugin: Architecture, Templates and a Firebase Distribution Example

How JetBrains and Android Studio plugins are structured: the platform, plugin.xml, the project template, extension points and the dev loop, with a worked example that builds an app and distributes it through Firebase App Distribution.

Android StudioIntelliJ PlatformPluginsKotlinFirebase

ArticleNEW

Make Your Own Font: Design a TTF File from Sketch to Install

A friendly, illustrated guide to building a TrueType font: what is inside a font file, letter anatomy, outlines, spacing and kerning, tools, a tiny font built from Python, testing and licensing.

FontsTrueTypeTypographyFontForgefontTools

ArticleNEW

Building Effective Agents in Practice: Delivering Jira and Crashlytics Fixes as Pull Requests

Anthropic’s workflow and agent patterns put to work: a Jira ticket, a plain spec or a Firebase Crashlytics crash becomes a tested pull request. Patterns, tool design, automatic prompts and guardrails, with diagrams.

AI agentsBuilding effective agentsJiraCrashlyticsCI/CD

ArticleNEW

Version Control, Git and Branching Strategies: Which Workflow Fits Which Team

What a VCS is, how Git works, the alternatives (Subversion, Perforce, Mercurial, Jujutsu), the right branching strategy for each situation, and the best tools for Git. With diagrams.

GitVersion controlBranchingGit FlowTools

ArticleNEW

Build and Ship a Desktop App with Java SE: A Hands-On Guide for CS Students

Build a Notes app with Java SE and Swing, learn event-driven programming and threading, test it with JUnit, and package it with jar, jlink and jpackage. Includes a reading map for the Deitel and Deitel book.

Java SESwingJavaFXjpackageStudents

ArticleNEW

Testing Android Apps: The Test Pyramid, JUnit, UI Automation and TDD

The test pyramid, JUnit 4 and 5, a map of the testing libraries, instrumentation and UI tests with Espresso and Compose, Appium, fixing flaky tests, and the pros and cons of TDD, with Kotlin examples.

TestingJUnitEspressoAppiumTDD

ArticleNEW

Write It Before You Build It: A Practical Guide to Design Docs

What a design doc is, what goes in it, a full worked example, a template you can copy, the benefits and costs, and when not to write one.

Design docsSoftware designTeamworkTemplates

ArticleNEW

Mobile System Design: A Practical Guide for Android Engineers

A six-step framework for designing mobile systems: requirements, API, data, architecture, caching, offline-first sync, performance, security and release, with worked designs for a feed, a chat app and live tracking.

System designAndroidOffline-first

Article

Building a private AI chat app for Android: local models, online models, and shipping to Google Play

How a chat app can run a language model on the phone, call an online model, fall back between them, and reach the Play Store: the theory, the architecture, a tiny model of your own, and the pitfalls.

AndroidOn-device AIllama.cppGoogle Play

Series6 series, 48 parts

Series · 13 partsNEW

Coding style: Clean Code, SOLID, Software Design Patterns, Clean Architecture, MVP, MVVM and Redux

One path through how good code is written and organised, from naming a variable to choosing an app architecture. It starts with Clean Code, SOLID and design patterns, then moves up to Clean Architecture and the MVP, MVVM and VIPER presentation patterns, all with Kotlin examples.

Clean CodeSOLIDSoftware design patternsClean ArchitectureMVPMVVMVIPER

Series · 9 partsNEW

Data structures, algorithms and programming patterns, with Kotlin Playground exercises

A hands-on starter guide for computer science students. It covers Big-O, arrays and hashing, stacks, queues and linked lists, trees, heaps, graphs, sorting, recursion and dynamic programming, and the reusable patterns for solving problems. Every part has diagrams, runnable Kotlin and tested exercises.

Data structuresAlgorithmsBig-OKotlinFor beginners

Series · 6 partsNEW

Building a design system for Android Views, with working code

How to design tokens, components, screen templates and documentation for an Android app without Jetpack Compose, with every claim backed by a running open-source example: github.com/liconrepo/MobileDesignSystem. Reading time only: cloning the repo and trying each part's exercises adds 15 to 30 minutes.

Design systemAndroidKotlinDesign tokensAccessibilityOpen source

Series · 8 partsNEW

Claude Code, from first install to a project that remembers

A two-level series. Beginner: getting started safely, giving Claude lasting memory with CLAUDE.md, spending fewer tokens, and finding the official docs, models and API. Advanced: day-to-day prompting and git, MCP, subagents and plugins, automation and teams, and a learning path. Reading time only: the exercises and the first-week plan add 20 to 40 minutes of hands-on practice a day.

Claude CodeCLAUDE.mdTokensMCPGitHub ActionsClaude API

Series · 8 partsNEW

Codex, from first install to a project that remembers

A two-level series on OpenAI Codex, built like the Claude Code series. Beginner: getting started safely, giving Codex lasting memory with AGENTS.md, spending fewer tokens, and finding the official docs, models and API. Advanced: day-to-day prompting and git, MCP, subagents, skills and plugins, automation and teams, and a learning path. Reading time only: the exercises and the first-week plan add 20 to 40 minutes of hands-on practice a day. Checked against the official docs on 18 October 2026.

CodexAGENTS.mdTokensMCPGitHub ActionsOpenAI API

Series · 4 partsNEW

Firebase for mobile apps: the tools behind a healthy release

An overview of four Firebase tools every mobile team meets: Remote Config, Analytics, App Distribution and Crashlytics. Each part explains what the tool does, with diagrams and a tiny example, and links to Google’s official setup guide instead of repeating it.