Mark L. Murphy

Android Developer and Developer Advocate

Recent Professional Experiences

For a full experience roster, please see my LinkedIn profile.

Principal Software Engineer: July 2024 - January 2026

Developed dashboard experience for the 2025 Dacora Model 001 ultra-luxury sedan light prototype. Scope included the instrument cluster, Mapbox-based turn-by-turn navigation, streaming media, and an AI-powered voice assistant. Developed using Compose Multiplatform, deployed on Android (AOSP builds on Raspberry Pi 5 devices).
Developed companion app for the aforementioned dashboard experience, allowing an Android phone to send over navigation destinations via Bluetooth LE. Developed using Jetpack Compose.

Principal Software Engineer/Technology Manager: August 2019 - June 2024

Team lead/manager of the 12-person Android app team for the Android-powered MIRROR connected fitness device (later rebranded lululemon Studio). Contributed to app architecture and development, including the Wear OS companion app, “MIRROR Digital” (on-phone workout streaming), and a never-released Android TV client.
In late 2023, took over management of the remainder of the lululemon Studio engineering department (approximately 15 people), after a third round of layoffs.
Worked directly with peer engineering teams (iOS app, mirror OS, backend, QA) and TPMs, plus interacted with product management/UX design, content teams, etc. Led daily standups and other meetings, coordinated Jira tickets and engineering planning, and generally kept things humming along.

Freelance Developer Advocate: June 2008 - December 2021 (+ current)

Author of The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development and several other books on Android app development. Published digitally on a subscription basis through 2021, now available for free under a Creative Commons license.
Developer on Android app projects for remote clients. Examples include:
- Ride booking app for a microtransit firm, using Kotlin, the Architecture Components, Google Maps, Retrofit, Dagger, and RxJava
- Event invitation app using Kotlin, the Architecture Components, Retrofit, Koin, and RxJava
- Code audit for IoT client app
Professional trainer, having trained over 1,000 engineers on how to write Android applications across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Android developer advocate, with over 23,000 contributed answers on Stack Overflow, dozens of conference presentations, and a decade’s worth of Android blog posts.
As “a hobby with a logo”, CommonsWare remains active, publishing a weekly newsletter on Jetpack Compose and a blog.

Masters of Business Administration, Spring 1992, University of Illinois.
Bachelors of Science in Physics, with concentration in Electrical Engineering and a minor in mathematics, Spring 1990, Penn State University. Graduated with distinction and honors.
Certificate of Business Management, Spring 1990, Penn State University.

Operating Systems: Android, macOS, Linux, Windows
Programming Languages: Kotlin, Java, Ruby, JavaScript, SQL, Groovy, C/C++
Key Software: Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, Gradle, git, Jira, Figma, SQLite, SQLCipher for Android, Confluence, nginx
Key Technologies: Jetpack Compose/Compose Multiplatform, Kotlin Multiplatform, Kotlin coroutines, RxJava/reactive programming, JUnit, Ollama, REST, JSON, XML, HTML/CSS, Bluetooth LE, protobuf

These were published under the CommonsWare brand from 2008 through 2021.

Elements of Android Jetpack: If you are new to Android app development — or are new to some newer techniques — this book will walk you through the core steps for building an app!
Exploring Android: If you “learn by doing”, this book contains step-by-step instructions for building an Android app, including using the Jetpack components!
Elements of Android Room: Room is Google’s object wrapper around SQLite databases, for a better API with reactive options. As part of the Jetpack, Room is part of Google’s recommended stack for Android app development. This book will show you how to use Room, from basics to advanced techniques.
Elements of Kotlin: Kotlin is the programming language of choice for modern Android app development — this book will help you get up to speed!
Elements of Kotlin Coroutines: Coroutines is an important part of the Kotlin ecosystem, offering a native form of reactive programming. In this book, we explore coroutines, from simple suspending functions through flows and channels, to see how you can apply them in your app development.
Also: Elements of Android R, Elements of Android Q

The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development: The first and most comprehensive book on first-generation Android app development, covering both the basics and a wide range of advanced topics!
Android’s Architecture Components: This book covers Google’s Architecture Components family of libraries, from Room and ViewModel to LiveData and how they integrate with classic Android app development!
Android and GraphQL: GraphQL is an alternative to REST for Web services — learn how to integrate your Android app with a GraphQL endpoint!

2019: DevFest DC, Android Summit
2018: Android Summit
2017: DevFest DC, AnDevCon DC, Android Summit, droidcon NYC, DevFest Florida
2016: AnDevCon Boston, Android Summit, droidcon NYC, DevFest DC, DevFest Florida
2015: droidcon NYC, DevFest DC, Android Summit
2014: droidcon NYC, AnDevCon Boston, Android Builders Summit (San Jose, CA, USA), DevWeek 2014 (London, UK), WIPJam @ Mobile World Congress (Barcleona, SP)
2013: AnDevCon San Francisco, Samsung DevCon (San Francisco, CA, USA), droidcon UK (London, UK), AppsWorld Europe (London, UK), xda:devcon (Miami, FL, USA), AnDevCon Boston, Mobile+Web DevCon (San Francisco, CA, USA)
2012: AnDevCon IV, droidcon UK, Big Android BBQ, AppsWorld Europe, AnDevCon III
2011: AnDevCon II, O’Reilly Android:Open, droidcon UK, AnDevCon
2010: Rich Web Experience