My Time at Fueled
Published: 09/07/2025
June was my last month at Fueled. I spent close to five years at the company. I joined as an entry-level Android engineer and left as a Lead on the mobile team.
I joined Fueled seeking two things:
- Making Android engineering my sole focus
- Learning from experienced engineers
Looking back at my time at Fueled, I've managed to accomplish both these objectives and topped it up with a lot more.
Android
At the start of my Fueled tenure, I described myself to people as a self-taught Android developer. Today, that definition has changed. I feel confident in my experience as a mobile engineer and present myself as someone who is highly skilled at what he does.
Before Fueled, I had built and launched Android apps. However, I felt like an imposter while doing so. My code worked, but it always felt sub-par and not "production-grade" to me. Heck, I didn't even know what "production-grade" meant back then! In 2025, this imposter syndrome is gone. I feel confident in my problem solving and execution skills to the high bar I set for myself. I owe my time at Fueled to thank for this.
Working at an agency like Fueled came at the right time in my career. The agency setup provided me with an opportunity to build products across a varied set of domains using different technology stacks. This contributed greatly to me gaining confidence in my skills.
Two notable Android projects at Fueled for me would be CLEAR and Six Flags. For CLEAR, we built mobile SDKs. After having used many Android libraries and SDKs over the years, it was exhilarating to build one for other developers. Six Flags (SF) on the other hand was a large-scale consumer app with a passionate user-base. It required a ... "production-grade" ... level of effort. Another big plus on SF were the engineering teams across Android and iOS. A fantastic bunch! Shout out to Ciaran, who was my partner-in-crime on this project.
Learning from Others
Fueled's Android team (aka the "droids") was by far my favorite part about my time there. The team had about six people when I joined. It then grew to a size of thirteen during the COVID years. Being a part of the droids was such a contrast to my job before Fueled. This is what I wanted: a diverse group of engineers to learn from.
The droids bi-weekly (virtual) meet is something I always looked forward to. There was a running Kanban board to set the agenda for these meets. There were presentations, coding challenges, discussions on coding standards, and more. I managed to dabble with new tech like Jetpack Compose early-on thanks to a droids coding challenge!
On a more personal note, I learned a lot from my peers in the droids. Hussein, Anvith, Bhavya, and Shashank all get shout outs. The entire droids crew was very supportive and welcoming to get on a huddle to solve a problem together. This was especially helpful when I'd just joined Fueled. I'm grateful for everything I've learned from the group.
Side Effects
Working at a progressive agency like Fueled for five years led to a happy side effect for me. I joined Fueled as an Android engineer, yet managed to learn a lot more than just Android. This is something I just hadn't considered before joining. I'm so glad that this happened.
Pretty early on at Fueled, I started learning Flutter. Fueled was seeing growing demand for Flutter projects and encouraged folks on the team to learn more about the framework. When the time was right, I got put on a Flutter project called WORDForce, which accelerated my learning.
Learning about Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) was another outcome from this. There was a buzz on the team about KMP and I like learning new things. I expressed an interest in KMP to my manager and found my way to Six Flags, which was built with KMP!
I've always been someone who doesn't like to stick to just one stack or technology to build things. I like to focus on the thing I'm making, rather than the tech I'm using. Fueled proved to be the perfect amalgamation of things to bolster this trait of mine.
Aaaand that's a wrap on my journey at Fueled. Fueled was one of my dream organizations to work at when I was in college. That dream is complete now. There are new dreams now, which I can't wait to get cracking on.
In closing, I would like to leave you with the most beautiful verse written by a colleague I worked with on a project at Fueled. I chose not to redact their name since they deserve every bit of recognition for this masterpiece.
