Android Developer at Wattpad via a Kotlin meetup conversation

I'd been quietly exploring new opportunities for about a month when I showed up to a Kotlin meetup in Toronto one February evening, mostly just to get out of the apartment and talk shop with other Android developers. The turnout was decent, maybe thirty people, and I ended up next to an engineer from Wattpad during the break. We started comparing notes on Compose Multiplatform, specifically state management and some of the rougher edges with shared UI logic across platforms. What I thought would be a five-minute chat stretched to nearly an hour. We swapped contacts before we left, and I honestly didn't think much of it beyond a good networking moment. About a week later he messaged me out of nowhere. A senior Android Developer position had just opened up internally, and he asked if he could put my name in. I said yes immediately. I'd done some light research on Wattpad before: Toronto-based, product-focused, reasonably sized engineering team, and what I found was encouraging. Over the next five weeks or so I went through six applications total for other roles while this one moved forward, but the Wattpad process was by far the most structured and engaging. Three rounds. A hiring manager screen where we talked about my experience ↓