Life360 · 7 hours ago
Staff Backend Engineer – Location Platform
United States
Full-time
Remote
Lead/Staff
$200K/yr - $280K/yr
8+ years expLife360 is a company dedicated to keeping families connected through innovative location services. They are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to architect and build the location platform infrastructure, handling billions of location events daily and ensuring the reliability of the system.
AndroidAppsFamilyMobileMobile Apps
Responsibilities
Design, architect, and build high-throughput, low-latency backend systems for real-time location processing, geofencing, and location intelligence at scale (billions of events/day)
Take technical ownership of critical subsystems from inception to production, driving architectural decisions, managing dependencies, and coordinating across multiple teams
Lead the design and development of geospatial libraries, location algorithms, and platform services that other teams build on—establishing standards and best practices for location data processing across the organization
Architect distributed systems using Java and Go, leveraging Kafka and NATS for event streaming, real-time data pipelines, and inter-service communication
Drive technical design specifications, translate architectural decisions into actionable engineering plans, and mentor engineers on distributed systems patterns and location platform architecture
Identify and address technical debt, scalability bottlenecks, and engineering process deficiencies—proactively improving system reliability, observability, and operational excellence
Collaborate across teams (mobile, firmware, data science, product) to define APIs, refine technical requirements, and ensure alignment with long-term platform goals
Evaluate and adopt new technologies and best practices for geospatial computing, distributed systems, and real-time data processing
Participate in on-call rotations, lead incident response for location platform systems, and continuously improve system resilience
Provide technical leadership and mentorship across teams, conducting thorough code reviews, sharing knowledge, and raising the engineering bar
Qualification
Required
8+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend systems, with deep expertise in distributed systems, high-throughput data processing, and scalable architectures
Expert-level distributed systems knowledge: Strong fundamentals in consistency models, distributed consensus, event-driven architectures, data partitioning, and fault tolerance
Location and geospatial expertise: Hands-on experience with geospatial algorithms, coordinate systems, spatial indexing (e.g., geohashing, S2, quadtrees), proximity search, and geofencing at scale
Proficiency in Java and Go: Strong coding skills with experience building production services, libraries, and frameworks in both languages
Deep experience with Kafka and NATS: Hands-on expertise designing and operating event streaming systems, real-time data pipelines, and message-driven architectures at scale
Proven track record of technical leadership: Experience driving architectural decisions, resolving design misalignments, and coordinating complex technical initiatives across multiple teams
High-throughput, low-latency systems: Experience building systems that process billions of events per day with strict latency requirements (e.g., p99)
Strong system design and architecture skills: Ability to independently design complex subsystems, evaluate trade-offs, and produce well-documented, maintainable architectures
Platform and library development: Experience building reusable libraries, SDKs, or platform services that other engineering teams depend on
Excellent collaboration and communication: Ability to translate technical concepts for diverse audiences, lead cross-functional discussions, and mentor engineers at all levels
Preferred
Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, distributed tracing), and SRE practices
Experience with real-time location tracking systems, telematics, or IoT data platforms
Familiarity with spatial databases (PostGIS, GeoMesa) or geospatial query engines
Background in mobile location APIs (iOS CLLocationManager, Android FusedLocationProvider) and understanding of device-side location collection
Experience with time-series data processing and storage (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, Apache Druid)
Knowledge of privacy-preserving location techniques and compliance with location data regulations (GDPR, CCPA)
Contributions to open-source distributed systems or geospatial projects
Experience with real-time stream processing frameworks (Kafka Streams, Flink, Spark Streaming)
Benefits
Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance plans (100% paid for employees)
401(k) plan with company matching program
Mental Wellness Program & Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental well-being
Flexible PTO, 13 company-wide days off throughout the year
Winter and Summer Weeklong Synchronized Company Shutdowns
Learning & Development programs
Equipment, tools, and reimbursement support for a productive remote environment
Free Life360 Platinum Membership for your preferred circle
Free Tile Products
Company
Life360
Life360 creates a mobile app for families that helps families feel closer together.
501-1000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Life360 has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (15)
2024 (22)
2023 (17)
2022 (21)
2021 (17)
2020 (7)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$460.24MKey Investors
Bryant Stibel InvestmentsRegal Funds ManagementADT,Expansion Venture Capital
2025-06-03Post Ipo Debt· $320M
2022-11-21Post Ipo Equity· $33.04M
2021-06-29Post Ipo Equity· $2.1M
Leadership Team
Chris Hulls
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman
Justin Moore
Chief Technology Officer
Recent News
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2026-01-24
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2026-01-24
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