The NDK is a total 'bolt-on' solution to the problem, and support within the Android dev tools is basically non-existent.

The biggest tragedy is that Google had a chance to make a better NDK experience with Android Studio, but instead they chose to ignore it completely. With Eclipse you at least had an official add-on for NDK support, but now you're expected to manage it with your Gradle files by hand. Now, even more than before, you're at the whim of solutions on Stack Overflow.