About Citizen

Citizen is the No. 1 public safety app in the U.S., with a mission to make the world a safer place. Citizen provides 911 alerts so people can use their phones to keep themselves, and the people and places they love, safe. Citizen has notified people to evacuate burning buildings, deterred school buses from nearby terrorist attacks, and led to the rescue of kidnapped children and missing people.

Citizen’s 911 alerts are accompanied by live stories, real-time updates, and user-generated content so app users never have to wonder why there are helicopters overhead or fire engines passing by. By broadcasting from the scene of an incident, communicating with one another, and reading live updates, communities are empowered by Citizen. We act fast, break news, and give people the immediate information they need to stay safe. And we’re just getting started.

Our paid products—Citizen Protect and Citizen Plus, enhance the Citizen experience by offering users powerful features like police scanner radio, historical incidents, custom alerts zones, and access to a digital guardian 24/7 help. Subscribers have used Citizen Protect to de-escalate tense domestic situations, guide emergency response to remote hiking locations, travel safely on late-night walks and Ubers.

Already relied on by millions of people every day, Citizen will expand even further across the United States this year to keep more users safe and informed. We’re looking for hardworking, mission-driven individuals to help bring Citizen to hundreds of cities nationwide.

Citizen is backed by 8VC, Founders Fund, Goodwater Capital, and Greycroft and has raised $100M+ in VC funding.

About the Role:

Citizen’s software architects and engineers develop the next-generation technologies that fulfill the company’s mission to protect the world. Our products need to handle information at massive scale, react to events in real time and extend well beyond a typical system. We’re looking for architects & engineers who bring fresh ideas from all areas, including real time information storage & retrieval, distributed computing, large-scale system design, multimedia streaming at scale, security, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, UI design and mobile design; the list goes on and is growing every day.

As a staff software architect, you are critical to bringing Citizen’s mission to fruition. Your job involves working with multiple internal technical stakeholders to chalk out the architecture for the Citizen Platform. Citizen Platform will be the underlying bedrock for enabling a multitude of use cases on top of a common set of software components. This platform will be the engine that drives future growth for the company by enabling the hundreds of use cases that we will build towards. We need our engineers to be versatile, display leadership qualities and be enthusiastic to take on new problems across the full-stack as we continue to push technology forward in our pursuit of protecting the world.

What You’ll Do Here:

• Work with the CTO to Lead the entire system design of Citizen, as well as, design of major software components, systems, and features.
• Keen understanding of multiple technologies used to build a full, modern and scalable technology stack
• Create API driven subsystems that can be easily quickly composed to create a new use cases - both B2C and B2B
• Help cultivate innovation by being a thought leader in multiple facets of Citizen’s technology stack
• Be the shepherd of all architectural decisions with a keen eye on performance and scale of the software stack
• Work cross-functionally with the Product Management and UX teams to bring their core requirements to the tech stack
• Mentor and train other team members on architecture, design techniques, and coding standards
• Ability to do a functional decomposition of the subsystems involved and create microservices and API definitions for them
• Successfully communicate the state of the system to the executive leadership team at Citizen
• Keep an eye on progress of development teams to ensure consistency with the architecture
• Actively seek ways to improve software processes and interactions with a view of increasing developer productivity
• Use a proactive approach to common challenges by continually researching best practices in architecture, design and coding
• Ensure software meets all requirements of quality, security, modifiability, extensibility etc.

We’d Love to Hear From You If You Have:

• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field preferred
• Proven experience as software architect & leading large scale projects
• Hands-on technical leadership experience directing project teams and setting technical direction
• Demonstrated expertise working with one or more of the following: Distributed Systems, Infrastructure, Machine Learning, Mobile Application Development, Embedded Systems, Mobile/Front End Development
• Experience architecting and developing solutions to ambiguous problems with significant impact
• Interest and ability to learn the latest development trends in computer science and engineering.
• Experience in software development and coding in various languages and frameworks (Go, Python)
• Familiarity with mobile, frontend and UI/UX design
• A technical mindset with great attention to detail
• Excellent collaboration and leadership skills
• Outstanding communication and presentation abilities

Salary Range & Benefits:

The below represents the expected salary range for this position in New York, New York. We take a number of factors into account when determining compensation including your location, experience, and other job-related factors.

Salary Range: $195,000 to $250,000 annually + equity + benefits

Citizen offers a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible spending accounts, paid time off, company holidays, stock option plan, commuter benefits, and various wellness perks.

Citizen is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected class.