Nitin Khanna
I build and run mobile apps. Most of my nine years were in fintech, the most regulated kind of app there is. KYC, privacy and security checks sit in every flow, and a bug can lose someone's money. I build to that standard in any industry.
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1
An app that ships fast, without cutting corners
Vance's remittance app was live on both stores 15 days after I joined, with KYC from the first release. Mutual funds took 30 days. Shore, a fact-checker that floated over WhatsApp, took two months.
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2
An app you can change without a release
I build server-driven UI. A new country, a changed KYC step or a rollback goes live for everyone at once, without app review and without asking people to update.
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3
Mobile at scale, releases owned
At StockGro I lead 15 engineers and own releases for millions of daily active users. I led the subscription rebuild, and StockGro now reports 10 million paying customers.
I'm a Staff Engineer at StockGro now, on an app with 37 million installs. Before that I was the first mobile hire at Vance, now Aspora, and then its Head of Mobile. Outside fintech: a consumer AI app (eezylife), a WhatsApp fact-checker (Shore), a marketplace for local services like salons and tailors (All Commerce), client apps from food delivery to warehouses, and AI agents.
What have you built?
Every number comes with a note on how it was measured.
What does "change it without a release" mean?
Most apps hard-code their screens and rules. Then every change, even one KYC step, means a new build, a wait for app review, and a wait for people to update. Some never do. In a regulated product that's a real risk.
I build it the other way round. The rules live on the server, and the app draws whatever the server sends. The industry calls it server-driven UI. A senior engineer at Cube put it more simply: "the app is just a JSON printer." I've built that way since. With feature flags and staged rollouts on top, a bad change reaches a few people first.
| Rules in the app | Rules on the server | |
|---|---|---|
| Open a new country | New build, app review, wait for updates | Add a config |
| A regulator changes a KYC step | Ship a release, old versions stay wrong | Change it once, live for everyone |
| Something breaks | Ship a fix and wait again | Switch it off or roll back |
| Run a campaign | Plan it around the release train | Turn it on when marketing is ready |
Try it: KYC at Vance
Each country's KYC steps lived in a config on the server. Switch the country and the same app shows different steps.
Simplified. The real config had a lot more rules in it.
How could you help us?
Depends on where you are. These are the situations I've been in before.
How did you get here?
I started on Android because that's what most people in India use. Since then I've mostly built apps that handle people's money.
- 2017–20
Agency work, then my own startup
At Q3 Technologies I led mobile for four client apps, from food delivery in Italy to a warehouse app. Then I co-founded Shore, a fact-checker that floated over WhatsApp as a chat head and read the screen when you tapped it. We shipped it in two months.
Earlier work - 2020–22
Cube Wealth, Android Lead
A wealth app with over a million downloads and a dozen kinds of investment. It's where I learned to keep the rules on the server. I also learned to be careful with async code, and that the kind of person you hire matters as much as their skills.
Cube work - 2022
eezylife, Android Lead
An AI planner that suggested what to do from your mood and personality, and talked to you in a chat, before ChatGPT made that normal. Around 400k installs. I split the app into modules so the team could work in parallel.
eezylife work - 2022–24
Vance, now Aspora. First mobile engineer, then Head of Mobile
I joined as the first mobile engineer to build the remittance app. I hired the team, built KYC for each new country, and learned that a separate flow per country was a mistake. What replaced it still runs in six countries.
Vance work - 2024–now
StockGro, Staff Engineer
I lead 15 engineers on an app with millions of daily active users, where a bad release reaches a lot of people at once. I set the technical direction for mobile and own releases, staged rollouts, app performance and stability, and the parts of the app that make money.
StockGro work - 2025–now
Building with agents
On the side, I build agents and use them for most of my own engineering. That's where Northline Ops, Chitta and Tailor came from.
What I'm building
What are you like to work with?
I own it
If you hire me for mobile, mobile is my problem. Releases, crashes, store reviews, KYC changes. I bring you in when a decision changes the vision, the users or the money.
I ship often
Small releases, often. Before building anything, I ask what we're trying to solve and what can wait.
I work async
Few meetings, written updates, design docs before big changes. I mentor the people I hire, give them time to settle in, and want them to push back on my calls.
I say what I think
Reasons win arguments, not titles. Hard feedback goes to people directly, in private. Once we decide, I commit.
I stay close to users
I read the support tickets, and I work closely with product, design and marketing. I don't want an app that keeps people in it longer than they need.
Code bends to the product
If the product needs something our code makes hard, that's an engineering problem, and it's mine.
What do you work with?
- Android
- Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Coroutines and Flow, modular architecture, Baseline Profiles, custom charts in Canvas
- iOS and cross-platform
- Swift, SwiftUI, React Native, Flutter, and knowing when to go native. Shipping to the App Store and Google Play
- Architecture
- Server-driven UI, BFF, feature flags, caching with ETags, design systems
- Releases and quality
- CI/CD on GitHub Actions for linting, builds and tests, release management, staged rollouts, crash-free rate, app start time, observability with Firebase, Sentry, PostHog and ClickHouse
- Growth and experiments
- A/B experiments and feature flags with Firebase Remote Config, analytics and attribution with Mixpanel, PostHog, WebEngage and AppsFlyer, referrals, campaigns, subscriptions
- Money and security
- KYC (Aadhaar, DigiLocker, passports, selfie checks), payments with Razorpay, UPI and card OTP flows, encryption, penetration testing, regulated launches in the UK, UAE and Europe
- Applied AI
- Agents with tool use, MCP servers, human approval steps and written guardrails. AI coding tools every day
- Leadership
- Hiring, mentoring, technical direction, async teams of up to 15, working closely with product, design and marketing
Everything else
Are you hands-on, or a manager?
Both. I lead 15 engineers at StockGro, and I've written 298 pull requests there since April 2024.
Only Android?
No. I started on Android and know it best, but I've shipped iOS with Swift and SwiftUI, and apps in React Native and Flutter. StockGro's first app for the UAE was React Native. At Cube we started on React Native and later moved to native. So I can tell you when cross-platform is the right call and when it isn't.
Full time, or part time?
Either. Full time as a Staff Engineer, Head of Mobile or in applied AI. Part time as a fractional mobile lead or an advisor.
What does a fractional engagement look like?
Usually 10 to 20 hours a week, hands-on. I start with an audit of the app, the code and the release process, and the first change ships within two weeks. From there it's whatever you need most: hiring and interviewing your first mobile engineers, setting up CI/CD, releases and crash monitoring, reviewing an agency's work, or adding AI features. You get a short written update every week.
Where are you based?
Bengaluru. I'm open to working with teams in the US, Europe and Asia.
Why have you moved jobs?
I've left when the direction changed and I didn't agree with it. I've never been let go. I've been working at StockGro since early 2024.
What would your first 90 days look like?
Mostly listening. How we release and build, how the code is designed and how it performs, how the team works and how often it talks to users, the engineering funnels and then the product ones, and why you hired me. Then I start on the bottleneck that matters most. The longer version
What's a mistake you've made?
At Vance we built a separate KYC flow for each new country to launch faster. It meant fixing the same problems again and again, and we rebuilt it to run from the server. More hard problems
Do you use AI in your own work?
Every day. Eight agents each have one job and a written list of what they aren't allowed to do. How that works
Who can I talk to about you?
People I've worked with at Vance, StockGro and elsewhere have written recommendations on LinkedIn.