API Architect

Foundation Capital; United States; Remote; USD 190,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote

Competitive compensation

401k Program

Education stipend

Well-being stipend

WFH stipend

Non-accrual PTO

Growth opportunities

Company retreats

Medical & family leave

Job summary

SafelyYou is hiring a senior API Architect to design, build, and operate our core backend services and the External Data API. This fully remote role shapes data platforms, governance, and customer integrations while mentoring engineers and delivering reliable systems.

You will drive streaming pipelines, ADRs, and API specifications, collaborating with cross-functional teams to align technical strategy with business goals and launch data-driven products.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional experience in software/backend/platform engineering.
• Deep expertise in designing, building, operating, and scaling RESTful APIs, web services, and distributed backend systems.
• Experience with designing and implementing API gateways and management systems such as Kong Hybrid, Apigee, Gravitee, or other similar systems.
• Have strong opinions around authentication, routing, policy enforcement, observability and deployment of these solutions.
• Strong programming proficiency in Python, with a focus on writing clean, scalable, and maintainable backend code.
• Proven experience with streaming data architecture and technologies (e.g. Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Spark Streaming).
• Experience making architectural and cost trade offs between batch streaming and synchronous processing.
• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and light DevOps practices, including containerization and deployment tools (e.g., Kubernetes, Helm charts).
• Strong technical communication skills with a track record of writing ADRs, API specs, and comprehensive architectural documentation.
• Experience managing CI/CD pipelines and improving developer environments.
• Prioritize quality over speed. When it is done, it is really done.

Responsibilities

• Own the design, development, and operation of scalable APIs, microservices, and backend platform infrastructure using Python and AWS.
• Own the architecture, continuous improvement, and lifecycle of the External Data API, serving as the technical bridge between our internal data systems and our customers.
• Support and evolve data governance tooling including registries and data dictionaries, such as the Event Registry.
• Provide documentation, implementation examples, and support while enforcing best practices and driving adoption for internal APIs.
• Architect and implement streaming data pipelines, driving the transition from batch processing to real-time data streaming architectures.
• Draft and maintain Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), API specifications, and system documentation.
• Improve developer workflow and experience by optimizing CI/CD pipelines, updating repository documentation, and establishing best practices.
• Introduce and leverage AI agent workflows to enhance engineering efficiency and keep the team updated on industry trends.
• Develop AI skills that third-parties may use when interacting with SafelyYou APIs and data products.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align technical strategy with business goals, supporting new product launches and cross-team tiger initiatives.
• Mentor team members, share deep technical expertise, and participate in on-call rotations to ensure high availability of critical services.
• This is a hands-on development role. You will be expected to not only drive architecture and best practices, but will also be hands-on in implementing and supporting the systems you design.

Skills

RESTful APIs

Python

AWS

Distributed systems

CI/CD pipelines

Technical communication

Mentoring

Tools

Kubernetes

Terraform

Kafka

API gateways (Kong/Apigee)

CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions)

Job description

*CANDIDATES MUST BE LOCATED IN THE UNITED STATES OR CANADA**

About SafelyYou

SafelyYou’s passionate mission is to empower safer, more person-centered care across senior living through world-leading AI, industry-changing hardware, and remote expert clinicians, significantly improving outcomes for residents while increasing peace of mind for families and reducing costs for communities.

Originating in 2015 as the doctoral research of CEO George Netscher—and inspired by his own family's experience with Alzheimer's disease—SafelyYou was spun out of UC Berkeley’s Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, one of the top five AI research groups in the world. And today, our company is solving critical challenges in senior living, from resident falls and ER visits to staffing concerns, length of stay, and NOI. All helping ensure that communities can focus on improved care for residents while still reaching their financial goals.

SafelyYou is one of five most innovative fall technologies referenced in the Senate Falls Report (2019), a winner of the McKnight’s Tech Partner of the Year, and has been named to Fortune’s Impact 20 list, which recognizes companies making people’s lives better through innovation.

Your Role at SafelyYou

As an API Architect at SafelyYou, you will be responsible for designing, building, and operating our core backend services and platform infrastructure. You will be the primary architect and technical owner of the External Data API, designing and improving the critical bridge between SafelyYou's data systems and our customers.

This is a fully remote, senior-level role. You are expected to bring stories of ways that APIs have gone well and poorly, technical expertise, operate with minimal guidance, and proactively mentor other engineers while shaping the future of our data and API platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the design, development, and operation of scalable APIs, microservices, and backend platform infrastructure using Python and AWS.

• Own the architecture, continuous improvement, and lifecycle of the External Data API, serving as the technical bridge between our internal data systems and our customers.

• Support and evolve data governance tooling including registries and data dictionaries, such as the Event Registry. Establishing patterns and best practices for schema governance, versioning, documentation, and compatibility as our architecture evolves.

• Support and evolve internal APIs used to provide information from data systems to applications built by other SafelyYou engineers, such as the feature enablement cache. Providing documentation, implementation examples, and support while enforcing best practices and driving adoption.

• Architect and implement streaming data pipelines, driving the transition from batch processing to real-time data streaming architectures.

• Draft and maintain comprehensive Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), API specifications, and system documentation to establish robust engineering patterns.

• Improve developer workflow and experience by optimizing CI/CD pipelines, updating repository documentation, and establishing best practices.

• Introduce and leverage AI agent workflows to enhance engineering efficiency and keep the team updated on industry trends.

• Develop AI skills that third-parties may use when interacting with SafelyYou APIs and data products.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align technical strategy with business goals, supporting new product launches and cross-team tiger initiatives.

• Mentor team members, share deep technical expertise, and participate in on-call rotations to ensure high availability of critical services.

• This is a hands-on development role. You will be expected to not only drive architecture and best practices, but will also be hands-on in implementing and supporting the systems you design.

Requirements:

• 7+ years of professional experience in software, backend, or platform engineering, preferably in a startup environment.

• Deep expertise in designing, building, operating, and scaling RESTful APIs, web services, and distributed backend systems.

• Experience with designing and implementing API gateways and management systems such as Kong Hybrid, Apigee, Gravitee, or other similar systems. Have strong opinions around authentication, routing, policy enforcement, observability and deployment of these solutions.

• Strong programming proficiency in Python, with a focus on writing clean, scalable, and maintainable backend code.

• Proven experience with streaming data architecture and technologies (e.g. Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Spark Streaming). Experience making architectural and cost trade offs between batch streaming and synchronous processing.

• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and light DevOps practices, including containerization and deployment tools (e.g., Kubernetes, Helm charts).

• Strong technical communication skills with a track record of writing ADRs, API specs, and comprehensive architectural documentation.

• Experience managing CI/CD pipelines and improving developer environments.

• Prioritize quality over speed. When it is done, it is really done.

The Ideal Candidate:

• Hands-on experience with modern AI-assisted and agentic development workflows, including coding agents, MCP, AI pair programming, and LLM-powered research

• Advanced proficiency with Infrastructure as Code tools, such as Terraform.

• Experience designing data models and architectures across ETL/ELT, warehouses, lakehouses, event-driven systems, and backend APIs and how these intersect with backend API design. With strong foundations in data quality, reliability, governance, and scalability.

• Experience with electronic health records (EHR), healthcare interoperability standards such as HL7 and FHIR, and associated data privacy regulations such as HIPAA.

• Experience with remote work and distributed, async-first engineering teams.

Why Join Us? You Can Make a Difference!

Salary Range: $190-210k base USD / $180-200k base CDN depending on experience, plus a bonus plan, stock options and benefits.

SafelyYou offers a competitive compensation package, including but not limited to:

• A mission-driven company culture

• Fully remote

• Competitive salary & benefits, including fully paid employee premiums for Medical, Dental, and Vision

• 401k Program

• Monthly Education, Well-being & WFH stipends

• Non-accrual PTO

• Growth Potential

• Company Retreats

• Medical & Family/Parental Leave

At SafelyYou, we believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace makes us a more relevant, competitive, and resilient company. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce that celebrates diversity. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other legally protected status.

We value all the perspectives our team members bring to the table, and that is why we don’t look for culture fit, but culture add. We want to hear from YOU! We encourage you to apply even if you do not fit 100% of the technical requirements.