diff --git a/init/test_kill_services/AndroidTest.xml b/init/test_kill_services/AndroidTest.xml
index c1dcd59de..8018efafb 100644
--- a/init/test_kill_services/AndroidTest.xml
+++ b/init/test_kill_services/AndroidTest.xml
@@ -18,7 +18,16 @@
     <option name="test-suite-tag" value="apct-native" />
 
     <!-- cannot be autogenerated: b/153565474 -->
-    <target_preparer class="com.android.tradefed.targetprep.RebootTargetPreparer" />
+    <target_preparer class="com.android.tradefed.targetprep.RebootTargetPreparer">
+        <!-- flake mitigation, in case device is in bad state-->
+        <option name="pre-reboot" value="true" />
+        <!-- sometimes device gets into bad state, and we don't detect it in this test,
+          so the test succeeds and the next test fails. This is a really bad result, so
+          to avoid that, making sure we reboot the device again before running any more
+          tests.
+          TODO(b/152556737): add metrics for successful device recovery -->
+        <option name="post-reboot" value="true" />
+    </target_preparer>
 
     <target_preparer class="com.android.tradefed.targetprep.RootTargetPreparer"/>