The problem was with Proguard/R8 and how it handles minifying the Firebase SDK. This was resolved in an update a week or so ago (Issue had been open since 2020)
Fixed an issue with Proguard rules when R8 full-mode obfuscation is enabledhttps://firebase.google.com/support/release-notes/android
The GitHub issue which lead me to the release notes: https://github.com/firebase/firebase-android-sdk/issues/2124
