United Kingdom · Technology and data · Lead (8-12 years)

Lead Mobile Developer

Here is the whole job, in plain words. What it is, what you decide, how you're judged, how people get here and where they go next. Then the part no course gives you: twelve AI tutors who learn your work.

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Free to start: a plan built for this role, and a Future Fluency module to try first. No card.

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One email: what AI is changing in this job, and where to start free. With a link back here. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.

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  • Experience bandLead (8-12 years)
  • Direct reports3-5 reports
  • Reports toMobile Engineering Manager
  • UK framework levelUsually a manager, or the deepest specialist in a team

Also advertised as Staff Mobile Engineer · Mobile Tech Lead · Principal Mobile Developer (Technical Track) · Senior Staff Mobile Developer

Built on 43,079 real UK job descriptions we analysed · grounded in qualifications employers recognise

1From this job to a course

The qualifications matched to this job

OCNLR Level 5 Diploma in Software Engineering OCN London · Level 5 · covers 1 of 2 standards
OCN NI Level 3 Diploma in Information Technology Applications Open College Network Northern Ireland · Level 3 · covers 1 of 2 standards
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Information Technology Pearson Education Ltd · Level 3 · covers 1 of 2 standards
Open College Network Northern Ireland Level 3 Vocationally-Related Qualification in Digital Technology (Users) Open College Network Northern Ireland · Level 3 · covers 1 of 2 standards
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in Information Technology Pearson Education Ltd · Level 3 · covers 1 of 2 standards
EAL Level 2 Certificate In Engineering Technologies Excellence, Achievement & Learning Limited · Level 2 · covers 1 of 2 standards

Matched from the standards this job is measured against: a suggestion, not an official ruling.

The units you would start with

Mobile Applications OCNLR Level 5 Diploma in Software Engineering
Mobile Application Development OCN NI Level 3 Diploma in Information Technology Applications
Mobile Apps Development Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Information Technology
Leading a team in Engineering EAL Level 2 Certificate In Engineering Technologies

The future skills this job leans on

AI Fluency working with AI as a thinking partner
Your Plan Illustration

Built for Lead Mobile Developer

4 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.

  1. Mobile Applications OCN London · covers 1 of 2 standards Level 5
  2. Mobile Application Development Open College Network Northern Ireland · covers 1 of 2 standards Level 3
  3. Mobile Apps Development Pearson Education Ltd · covers 1 of 2 standards Level 3
  4. Leading a team in Engineering Excellence, Achievement & Learning Limited · covers 1 of 2 standards Level 2
These are the real units behind this job, in the order they rank for it. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

2AI and this work

Will AI change your work as a Lead Mobile Developer?

Nobody can say exactly how. Here is what this job is being asked for next, and where to start.

The new skills this role is being asked for

  • AI-Powered Development & Prompt Engineering
  • Cross-Platform Native Integration (KMP/SwiftUI for Android)
Why each one is rising

The future skills this job leans on

We'll only ever tell you what we can actually back up. No hype, no scare tactics.

What happens when you start

Next, a free account. We build your Lead Mobile Developer plan as you set up, starting with a Future Fluency module on using AI in your job. No card.

Your first Future Fluency module is free. After that, your AI tutor is £70 a month.

3What this role really is

A lead mobile developer sets technical direction and makes the tough calls on mobile projects. You step in when the architecture feels wobbly or a new feature needs a solid technical plan. You stay hands on with the hardest code, while guiding others and making sure things are built the right way.

4What you'd actually use

The tools this job runs on, and how well you'd need to know each one.

Swift & Kotlin Expert

Writing, reviewing, and debugging complex native iOS and Android features, including advanced concurrency and memory management patterns.

Xcode & Android Studio Expert

Mastering advanced debugging, profiling, and build automation features. Configuring complex project settings and troubleshooting build issues.

React Native or Flutter Advanced

Architecting new cross-platform features, optimising performance, and managing complex state if we're using a hybrid approach. You'll be the go-to person for tough cross-platform challenges.

Git & GitHub/GitLab Expert

Enforcing branching strategies, resolving complex merge conflicts, mentoring juniors on advanced Git workflows (e.g., rebasing, cherry-picking), and managing repository security.

Fastlane or Gradle Scripts Expert

Automating mobile build, testing, and deployment processes. Writing and maintaining custom scripts to streamline the release pipeline and manage 'code signing' complexities.

Jira & Confluence Expert

Managing sprints, creating detailed technical tasks with clear acceptance criteria, tracking team velocity, and documenting architectural decisions and technical specifications.

5What you get to decide, and how that grows

Power in a job isn't your title. It's what you're allowed to decide. Here's how it grows as you move up.

The choiceComing in Where you are nowThe step above
Technical Architecture for New Features Proposes options with guidance, implements small components. Designs components within existing architecture, gets sign-off from senior. Designs major features, consults lead on complex integrations, owns implementation.
Code Review & Standards Receives detailed feedback, applies standards. Provides feedback on minor issues, ensures adherence to standards. Enforces coding standards, provides in-depth technical feedback, mentors.
Technical Debt Prioritisation Identifies minor issues, flags to senior. Proposes solutions for identified debt, implements with approval. Identifies significant debt, proposes refactoring projects, estimates effort.
Tooling & Library Selection Uses existing tools, learns new ones as directed. Evaluates alternatives for specific tasks, recommends to senior. Researches and recommends new libraries/tools, assesses pros/cons.

6How you'll be judged

The scoreboard, and what is not on it. The hard targets, how often each is actually looked at, and the quiet signals that never reach a dashboard.

App Crash-Free Rate
The percentage of user sessions that complete without an unexpected crash.
Target · Maintain 99.95% or higher across all mobile apps.

If we have 1,000,000 sessions in a month, we'd aim for fewer than 500 crashes. Your architectural decisions and code review rigour directly impact this.

Technical Debt Reduction
The number of identified technical debt items (e.g., legacy code, performance bottlenecks, architectural flaws) that are addressed and resolved.
Target · Reduce identified critical technical debt by 15% per quarter.

Identifying and refactoring a 'Massive View Controller' that was causing frequent bugs, reducing its complexity score by 30% and enabling two new features to be built on top of it without issue.

Team Velocity & Throughput
The average number of story points completed by your immediate team per sprint, reflecting efficiency and predictability.
Target · Increase team's average sprint velocity by 10% year-over-year, while maintaining quality.

If your team typically completes 30 story points a sprint, we'd expect to see that rise to 33 points over a year, not by cutting corners, but by improving processes, reducing blockers, and making better technical choices.

Code Review Turnaround Time
The average time it takes for your pull requests to be reviewed and merged, and for you to review others' pull requests.
Target · Average PR merge time under 24 hours for your own code; review 95% of assigned PRs within 8 business hours.

You submit a PR on Monday morning, and it's merged by Tuesday morning. Equally, you're not letting junior developers wait days for your feedback, unblocking them quickly.

Architectural Design & Guidance
Your ability to design robust, scalable, and maintainable solutions for complex features and to guide your team in implementing them correctly.
  • You're consistently consulted on major technical decisions. Your design proposals are clear, well-reasoned, and lead to successful implementations. Junior developers seek your advice on tricky problems, and your solutions prevent future issues.
Mentorship & Technical Leadership
How effectively you uplift the technical capabilities of your team members through coaching, code reviews, and knowledge sharing.
  • Your direct reports show measurable improvement in their coding practices and problem-solving skills. They feel supported and challenged. You actively lead technical discussions and present solutions at team or department-wide meetings. A junior developer you've mentored gets promoted or takes on more complex work.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Your effectiveness in working with Product, Design, and Backend teams to deliver features, anticipating and resolving technical challenges proactively.
  • You're actively involved in early-stage product discussions, flagging technical constraints or opportunities. You build strong relationships with other leads. There are fewer 'surprise' issues arising from miscommunication between mobile and other teams. You're seen as a trusted technical voice by non-technical stakeholders.
Technical Documentation & Knowledge Sharing
The quality and completeness of technical documentation you create and your contribution to the team's shared knowledge base.
  • Key architectural decisions are clearly documented. New team members can onboard faster thanks to your guides. You actively contribute to our internal wiki or run tech talks that help the whole team learn.

7Would you like it

Both sides. What people enjoy, and what grinds them down.

What people enjoy
Solving Complex Technical Puzzles

You'll spend a good chunk of your week tackling the hardest bugs, figuring out how to integrate new, tricky SDKs, or designing the architecture for a feature no one's built before. It's about getting your hands dirty with the really challenging stuff.

Debugging a 'race condition' that only appears on a specific Android device model, or designing a robust offline-first data synchronisation mechanism.

Mentoring and Growing a Team

You'll get a real kick out of seeing your team members improve. This means regular code reviews where you teach, one-on-one sessions helping them unblock, and leading technical discussions that raise everyone's game. Your success is tied to their growth.

Guiding a mid-level developer through their first major architectural contribution, or helping a junior developer understand advanced Swift concurrency patterns.

Shaping Technical Direction

You won't just be handed tasks; you'll be defining them. This role lets you influence the tech stack, set coding standards, and make key decisions about how we build and deliver mobile apps. It's about leaving your mark on the product's technical foundation.

Proposing and leading the adoption of a new state management library, or architecting a modular app structure that allows for faster feature development.

What frustrates people
  • Dealing with 'provisioning profile hell' or obscure Gradle build errors that eat up hours.
  • Receiving design mockups that are technically challenging or impossible to implement efficiently on both platforms, requiring careful negotiation with designers.
  • Having to fix bugs in poorly documented, legacy code written years ago by someone who's long gone.
  • Backend API changes that break existing mobile functionality without proper communication or versioning.
  • The constant need to stay updated with rapidly evolving mobile OS features and tooling, which can feel like a treadmill.
What this role does not give you
  • A purely individual contributor role with no team leadership or mentorship responsibilities.
  • A role where you only work on greenfield projects; there's plenty of legacy code to maintain and improve.
  • Complete autonomy over technical decisions without needing to justify them to product or management.
  • A predictable, '9-to-5' routine; critical bugs or urgent releases can sometimes demand extra effort.

8Who you work with

This role is critical for the technical health and future direction of our mobile platform. Your architectural choices and technical guidance directly influence the quality, performance, and maintainability of our apps. Get it right, and we scale gracefully; get it wrong, and we're constantly patching holes, slowing down innovation across the entire product suite. You'll be shaping the technical capabilities of your team and setting standards for how we build mobile experiences.

Inside the business
  • Product Managers (for feature requirements and roadmap alignment)
  • UI/UX Designers (for design system adherence and user experience)
  • Backend Engineering Leads (for API contracts and system integration)
  • QA Leads (for testing strategy and release quality)
  • Other Mobile Tech Leads (for cross-team consistency and shared components)
Outside the business
  • App Store Review Teams (Apple & Google, for compliance and approval)
  • Third-party SDK/API Providers (for integration and support)

9What you need before you start

Not a wish list. The things you would be expected to already have.

  • Proven track record of 8+ years building and shipping complex mobile applications on both iOS and Android platforms (native or cross-platform).
  • Demonstrable experience leading technical projects or workstreams, including architectural design and mentoring junior developers.
  • Expert-level proficiency in either Swift/iOS or Kotlin/Android development, with strong familiarity in the other, or advanced expertise in a cross-platform framework like React Native or Flutter.
  • Deep understanding of mobile application architecture patterns (e.g., MVVM, MVI, Clean Architecture) and their practical application.
  • Extensive experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing frameworks specific to mobile development.
  • Strong problem-solving skills, with a history of debugging and optimising complex mobile performance issues.
  • Excellent communication skills, capable of articulating complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.

10What to practise next

Where the job is going, and what to do about it starting this week.

Advanced Distributed Systems & Offline-First Architectures

Users expect seamless experiences even with intermittent or no network connectivity. As apps become more complex, handling data synchronisation, conflict resolution, and local persistence reliably becomes paramount, especially for critical business functions.

Conflict Resolution Strategies · Event-Driven Architectures (on device) · Local Persistence & Encryption · Background Sync & Work Managers

  • This quarter: Take an online course or read a book specifically on distributed systems and offline-first mobile patterns.
  • Next quarter: Lead the design and implementation of an offline-first capability for a new or existing feature, focusing on robust data synchronisation.
  • Month 6-9: Present a 'lessons learned' session on building resilient offline-first features to the wider mobile team.
  • Ongoing: Review our current apps for areas where offline capabilities could significantly improve user experience or reliability.

Quick win: Implement a simple local caching mechanism for a frequently accessed API endpoint in one of our apps, making it more resilient to network drops.

Platform Engineering for Mobile

As our mobile team grows, we need to think about developer experience and efficiency. This means building internal tools, libraries, and processes that make it easier and faster for all mobile developers to contribute high-quality code. As a Lead, you'll start contributing to this 'developer enablement' effort.

Internal Tooling & CLI Development · Modularisation & Internal Libraries · Developer Experience (DX) Metrics · Observability & Monitoring for Mobile

  • This month: Identify one repetitive task in your team's workflow and write a script to automate it (e.g., a Git hook, a Fastlane action).
  • Next quarter: Propose and lead the creation of a small, shared internal library for a common utility function that multiple features use.
  • Month 6-9: Work with other Leads to define a set of DX metrics for the mobile team and start tracking them.
  • Ongoing: Actively contribute to our internal documentation and onboarding materials, making it easier for new hires to get productive quickly.

Quick win: Create a simple template or project generator for new features or modules, reducing setup time for developers.

11Staying current once you are in

What people here do to keep up
  • Actively participate in mobile developer communities, online forums, and local meetups to stay connected and share knowledge.
  • Contribute to open-source mobile projects, demonstrating your coding skills and collaborative abilities.
  • Attend industry conferences (e.g., WWDC, Google I/O, Droidcon, iOSDevUK) to learn about the latest trends and network with peers.
  • Regularly read leading mobile development blogs, technical papers, and books to deepen your architectural and platform-specific knowledge.
  • Mentor junior developers informally or through structured programmes, honing your leadership and coaching skills.

12The rising capability

The rising capability

Zavmo analysis

What's rising in its place

This is where the work is heading, and the higher pay with it. Get fluent here and the shift stops being a threat and starts being your edge.

AI-Powered Development & Prompt Engineering

AI assistants are quickly becoming indispensable for developers. Competitors are already using tools like GitHub Copilot and LLMs to accelerate coding, debugging, and even testing. Developers who master these tools will outproduce their peers significantly, and as a Lead, you'll need to guide your team in this new paradigm.

  • Context Windows & Token Limits
  • RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
  • Output Validation & Hallucination Detection
  • AI-Driven Test Generation

Cross-Platform Native Integration (KMP/SwiftUI for Android)

While dedicated cross-platform frameworks exist, the trend towards shared codebases for business logic, or even UI, using native languages (e.g., Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile for shared logic, or SwiftUI/Jetpack Compose for cross-platform UI on desktop/web) is growing. This offers native performance with some code reuse, and as a Lead, you'll need to evaluate if and how we adopt these.

  • Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM/KMP)
  • Shared UI Paradigms
  • Platform-Specific Interoperability
  • Build System Integration

13What you’ll use

What you’ll use

Skills this role draws on

Technical

  • Mobile UI/UX Architecture
  • Advanced State Management & Data Flow
  • Performance Optimisation & Debugging
  • API Design & Integration
  • Unit, Integration & UI Testing Strategy
  • App Store Release Management & Automation

14The pathway

The pathway

How you actually get there, here

How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.

  1. 1

    Senior Mobile Developer (Internal Promotion)

    3-5 years as a Senior Developer

    Skills to master

    • Consistently delivering complex features, strong architectural contributions to existing systems, proactive problem-solving, and informal mentorship of peers.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You're already the 'go-to' person for tough technical challenges within your team.
    • You've led the technical design and implementation of at least one major feature from start to finish.
    • Your code reviews are consistently high-quality and help others improve.
    • You proactively identify and propose solutions for technical debt or architectural improvements.
  2. 2

    Mobile Tech Lead (from another company)

    Direct entry with 8-12 years experience

    Skills to master

    • Demonstrable experience leading a small team, designing mobile architectures, and driving technical best practices in a previous role.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You can articulate complex architectural decisions you've made and their impact.
    • You have a strong track record of mentoring and developing junior engineers.
    • You're comfortable presenting technical solutions and strategies to a diverse audience.
    • You can quickly assess a new codebase and identify key areas for improvement.
  3. 3

    Specialist Mobile Engineer (e.g., Performance, Security)

    5-8 years as a specialist, then transition to broader leadership

    Skills to master

    • Deep expertise in a specific area of mobile development (e.g., performance optimisation, security, graphics), coupled with a growing interest in broader architectural and team leadership.

    You're ready to move on when

    • You're recognised as the expert in your niche within your organisation.
    • You've started to take on broader architectural responsibilities beyond your specialism.
    • You've demonstrated an ability to teach and share your specialised knowledge with others.
    • You're keen to move into a role with more direct team guidance and project ownership.

15Where this role leads

The long view: From here, work can move towards principal engineer roles that deepen technical expertise, or towards management roles leading and growing teams. Some go on to shape technology strategy as a director or CTO.

The ten Future Fluencies

Zavmo analysis

The credential is what you can do today. These are what keep you valuable.

A qualification proves you can do the job as it's defined today. These ten are what decide whether you're still the obvious person for it in five years. They're the capabilities employers are now writing into senior roles faster than people are learning them. Zavmo weaves them through whatever you study, so you come out with both: the credential and the fluency.

The highlighted ones are the Fluencies your role leans on hardest, from how Lead Mobile Developer is actually changing.

How you would learn this

One to one, on the work you already do

A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.

A lesson from Mobile Applications, worked against Lead Mobile Developer.

Mobile Applications Level 5

Applied to your work in Lead Mobile Developer

This unit aims to equip learners with the skills to design and develop user interfaces for mobile applications, implement functionalities using appropriate programming languages and SDKs, create responsive designs, and develop, test, debug, and deploy mobile applications across multiple devices.

How the thinking builds
  1. 1 Remember
  2. 2 Understand
  3. 3 Apply
  4. 4 Analyse
  5. 5 Evaluate
  6. 6 Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.

It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time.

See Your Progress Grow Illustration
Lead Mobile Developer
  • Mobile UI/UX Architecture
  • Advanced State Management & Data Flow
  • Performance Optimisation & Debugging
  • API Design & Integration
  • Unit, Integration & UI Testing Strategy
  • App Store Release Management & Automation
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

16The detail, folded away

Everything else the record holds

The career branches in full, how AI is already showing up in the day-to-day, and the questions people ask about this job. Here when you want them, out of the way while you decide.

Where it leads next, rung by rung

Where it leads

The career path, and where it branches

Lead Mobile Developer is a start, not a ceiling. Each step below asks for new skills and hands back more autonomy.

  1. Principal Mobile Engineer (Individual Contributor Track)

    3-5 years as a Lead Mobile Developer

    This is a significant jump, moving from leading a team's technical direction to setting the technical strategy for the entire mobile organisation.

    • Enterprise Mobile Architecture Designing and overseeing the architecture of multiple mobile applications and shared platform components.
    • Mobile Platform Strategy Evaluating and recommending major technology investments (e.g., new cross-platform frameworks, core SDKs) for the entire mobile organisation.
    • Technical Due Diligence Assessing the technical viability and risk of potential acquisitions or major partnerships from a mobile perspective.
    • Performance Engineering Leadership Setting and driving performance targets for the entire mobile platform, not just a single app.
  2. Mobile Engineering Manager (Management Track)

    2-4 years as a Lead Mobile Developer

    This shifts your focus from hands-on technical leadership to people management and team strategy.

    • Team Organisation & Structure Designing effective team structures, defining roles, and optimising workflows.
    • Project Portfolio Management Overseeing multiple mobile projects simultaneously, ensuring alignment with business goals.
    • Performance Reporting & Analytics Presenting team performance metrics and insights to senior management.
    • Vendor Management Evaluating and managing relationships with external mobile development agencies or tool providers.
Working with AI on the job

Working with AI

Where AI is starting to help

Let's be real, mobile development has its repetitive bits and head-scratching moments. Imagine if you could cut down on those and focus on the really interesting, high-impact architectural work. Good news: AI tools are here to help you do exactly that. We're not talking about replacing you; we're talking about making you a mobile development powerhouse.

Our AI Productivity Hub is designed to integrate seamlessly into your daily workflow, giving you access to tools that automate the mundane, explain the complex, and even help you write better tests. As a Lead, you'll not only use these tools yourself but also help your team adopt them, multiplying your collective efficiency.

Smart Code Generation & Refactoring

Use tools like GitHub Copilot or similar AI-powered IDE extensions to instantly generate boilerplate code for data models, networking layers, or even complex UI components. Need to refactor a 'Massive View Controller'? AI can suggest patterns and even draft the new structure, saving you hours of tedious typing and helping you focus on the architectural improvements.

Advanced Debugging & Error Explanation

When you hit a cryptic 'linker error' or a strange crash log, paste it into an LLM like ChatGPT-4 or Claude. These tools can often provide instant, clear explanations of what the error means, common causes, and a list of potential solutions, cutting down debugging time significantly. No more endless Stack Overflow searches for obscure build issues.

Automated Unit & UI Test Generation

As a Lead, ensuring test coverage is crucial. AI tools can analyse your code and automatically generate comprehensive unit tests for your functions or even scaffold UI tests for new screens. This means your team can achieve higher test coverage faster, reducing regressions and freeing up time for more complex testing scenarios.

Intelligent Documentation & PR Summaries

Spend less time writing tedious documentation. AI can scan your code changes and automatically draft clear, concise summaries for your pull request descriptions, generate user-facing release notes, or even create initial drafts of technical design documents, letting you focus on the strategic content.

Common questions

Common questions

How do you become a Lead Mobile Developer?

Common routes in include Senior Mobile Developer (Internal Promotion) (3-5 years as a Senior Developer), Mobile Tech Lead (from another company) (Direct entry with 8-12 years experience) and Specialist Mobile Engineer (e.g., Performance, Security) (5-8 years as a specialist, then transition to broader leadership). Times vary with prior experience.

Where can a Lead Mobile Developer progress to?

This role can lead on to Principal Mobile Engineer (Individual Contributor Track) (3-5 years as a Lead Mobile Developer) and Mobile Engineering Manager (Management Track) (2-4 years as a Lead Mobile Developer), depending on the skills you build.

What new skills matter most for a Lead Mobile Developer?

Increasingly, AI-Powered Development & Prompt Engineering and Cross-Platform Native Integration (KMP/SwiftUI for Android). These are the skills our record of this role lists as growing.

Free tools

Want a read on where you stand?

Three free tools, no account needed. Each one ends with a role, a level and a way in.

17Where to go from here

Other roles at Level 5

Same depth of qualification, different job. Useful if the work appeals but this particular role does not.

More jobs in technology and data

Stay in the field you know and move sideways rather than up.

If you leave this industry

The skills built as a lead mobile developer carry across industries such as FinTech, HealthTech, e-commerce and media. Every sector needs mobile technical leaders who understand platform detail, performance and user experience.

This role profile is © 2026 Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.

You're not behind. You're right on time. The shift is only just beginning. Your role won't look the same in two years. Be the one who leads the change, not the one it happens to. Start my Lead Mobile Developer plan, free What happens next: a free account, then we build your plan as you set up. No card. Build your plan, see your roadmap and meet the twelve tutors matched to you. All free. When you're ready to start learning, it's £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.