Remote API Architect: Scalable Backend & Data Pipelines

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

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.