Senior Backend Engineer II, AI Native, Vertical Experiences Remote, USA

Life360; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 148,000 - 216,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Life360 Platinum Membership

Tile Products

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

Life360 is seeking a Backend Engineer for the Vertical Experiences (Devices Cloud) team to design, build, and operate cloud services powering our connected devices. You’ll work at hardware-software boundaries, handling high-throughput, low-latency systems that ingest telemetry and enable new device-driven features for millions of members worldwide.

You’ll operate in a remote-first environment with AI-native development practices, collaborating across teams to deliver features weekly and optimize

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years building backend services in Java, Go, Python, or similar languages.
• Experience with microservices architecture, RESTful API design, and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain backend services for device connectivity and telemetry ingest.
• Define APIs and workflows with firmware, mobile, and product teams.
• Deliver scalable microservices in AWS (EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS).
• Build data pipelines for high-throughput streams (Kafka or similar).
• Instrument services for observability, reliability, and SLO compliance.
• Participate in on-call rotations and live incident response.
• Write clean, testable code and improve CI/CD and automation.
• Orchestrate AI coding agents for spec writing, code generation, testing, reviews.

Skills

Backend engineering

RESTful APIs

Distributed systems

AWS cloud

CI/CD

AI workflow

Education

Bachelor's in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Kafka

Kubernetes

DynamoDB

SQS

Job description

Remote, USA

About Life360

Life360's mission is to keep people close to the ones they love. Our category-leading mobile app, Tile tracking devices, and Pet GPS tracker empower members to protect the people, pets, and things they care about most with a range of services, including location sharing, safe driver reports, and crash detection with emergency dispatch. Life360 serves approximately 102.4 million monthly active users (MAU), as of June 30, 2026, across more than 180 countries.

Life360 delivers peace of mind and enhances everyday family life with seamless coordination for all the moments that matter, big and small. By continuing to innovate and deliver for our customers, we have become a household name and the must-have mobile-based membership for families (and those friends who are basically family).

Life360 has more than 500 (and growing!) remote-first employees. For more information, please visit life360.com.

Life360 is a Remote-First company, which means a remote work environment will be the primary experience for all employees. All positions, unless otherwise specified, can be performed remotely (within the US and Canada) regardless of any specified location above.

We are AI Native

We are building an AI native company where AI is an integral part of how we build and operate. AI tool usage during interviews varies by role. You may be asked to demonstrate proficiency with AI tools, discuss how you leverage AI, or complete interview exercises without AI assistance. Your Recruiter will provide clear guidance as you move through the interview process.

Undisclosed use of AI not previously discussed with or approved by your Recruiter may impact your candidacy.

About The Team

The Vertical Experiences team builds the experiences that bring pets into the family — pet profiles, activity timelines, care coordination, lost pet alerts, and third-party integrations. We sit within Life360's Devices org, but our work is squarely in the consumer product layer: building experiences that help families care for, track, and stay connected to their pets. We ship frequently, own our features end to end, and work closely with mobile, design, and product to define what pet ownership looks like inside Life360.

We are an AI-Native team. AI isn't an add-on to how we work — it's how we work. We've redesigned our development workflows around AI, using it as a first-class collaborator at every stage: spec writing, code generation, test authoring, incident triage, and system design. We ship faster and go deeper because of it. We're looking for engineers who want to help define what AI-native development looks like for a high-traffic consumer product.

About the Job

As a Backend Engineer on the Vertical Experiences (Devices Cloud) team, you’ll build and operate the cloud services that power Life360’s connected devices. This role sits at the intersection of hardware, firmware, and mobile, translating real-world device signals into reliable, scalable backend systems. You’ll work on high-throughput, low-latency services that manage device state, ingest telemetry, and enable new device-driven features for millions of members worldwide. The work is hands-on, systems-oriented, and designed for engineers who enjoy solving messy, real-world problems at scale.

You don't just use AI tools. You think natively in them. Your primary workflow involves orchestrating agents to create specs, generate code and tests, verify results, and perform reviews. You'll help establish and evolve AI-native engineering practices for the Vertical Experiences team while delivering features that ship to production weekly.

For candidates based in the US, the salary range for this position is $148,000 to $216,000 USD. For candidates based out of Canada, the salary range for this position is $171,500 to $201,000 CAD.Note: Please be aware that the job title for positions in Canada will be "Developer" in lieu of "Engineer". We take into consideration an individual's background and experience in determining final salary- therefore, base pay offered may vary considerably depending on geographic location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The compensation package includes a wide range of medical, dental, vision, financial, and other benefits, as well as equity.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain backend services that support device connectivity, telemetry ingest, health monitoring, and command/control operations.
• Collaborate with firmware, mobile, and product teams to define APIs and workflows for device features.
• Deliver scalable, resilient systems in a microservices environment running on AWS (EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, etc.).
• Build and own data pipelines for high-throughput streams using Kafka or similar streaming tech.
• Instrument services for observability, reliability, and SLO compliance.
• Participate in on-call rotations and live incident response.
• Write clean, testable, performant code and help improve CI/CD and automation.
• Orchestrate AI coding agents daily for spec writing, code generation, test authoring, incident triage, PR review, and system design

What We’re Looking For

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years experience building backend services in Java, Go, Python, or similar languages.
• Experience with microservices architecture, RESTful API design, and distributed systems.
• Strong skills with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), container orchestration, and deployments.
• Experience with databases (relational and/or NoSQL), caching layers, and event/streaming systems.
• Comfortable collaborating across teams and articulating technical tradeoffs.
• Hands-on agentic AI workflow experience.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience with IoT or telematics systems.
• Familiarity with Kafka, Kinesis, or other streaming platforms.
• Experience with high-frequency ingest systems and time-series data.
• Knowledge of SRE practices and automated testing frameworks.

We use AI coding tools as a professional standard on this team. Here's what that means in practice:

• Daily use: You use AI coding assistants (we support Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot) for real, substantive tasks: analysis, coding, refactoring, testing, navigating codebases, and documentation. Not just research or autocomplete.
• Judgment and ownership: AI-generated code gets the same review you'd give any PR. You are accountable for everything you ship.
• Velocity: We expect senior engineers who use AI well to operate with meaningful leverage — doing more with the same time, taking on problems that would otherwise require a larger team.
• Team leadership: You share what works. You automate prompting strategies that others can build on.
• Continuous learning: The tooling is changing fast. You stay current and bring recommendations to the team.
• Competitive pay and benefits.
• Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance plans (100% paid for US employees). We offer supplemental plans for medical and dental for Canadian employees.
• Paid parental leave.
• 401(k) plan with company matching program in the US and RRSP with DPSP plan for Canadian employees.
• Mental Wellness Program & EAP.
• Flexible PTO and 12 company-wide days off throughout the year.
• Equipment, tools, and reimbursement support for a productive remote environment.
• Free Life360 Platinum Membership for your preferred circle.
• Free Tile Products.

Life360 Values

Our company’s mission-driven culture is guided by our shared values to create a trusted work environment where you can bring your authentic self to work and make a positive difference.

• Be a Good Person — We have a team of high integrity people you can trust.
• Be Direct With Respect — We communicate directly, even when it’s hard.
• Members Before Metrics — We focus on building an exceptional experience for families.
• High Intensity, High Impact — We do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Our Commitment to Diversity

We believe that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that delivers better results. Together, we continue to build an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices of our employees. It fuels our innovation and connects us closer to our customers and the communities we serve. We strive to create a workplace that reflects the communities we serve and where everyone feels empowered to bring their authentic best selves to work.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Life360. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any legally protected status.

We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas. Come join us in building something meaningful. Even if you don’t meet 100% of the above qualifications, you should still seriously consider applying!