Senior Software Engineer II (AI-Native), Messaging

Life360’s mission is to keep people close to the ones they love. Our category-leading mobile app and Tile tracking devices 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 91.6 million monthly active users (MAU), as of September 30, 2025, 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 that basically are 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.

The Messaging team owns the backbone of Life360’s real-time infrastructure, powering the event streaming and data pipelines that keep millions of families connected. We process billions of events every day, enabling everything from location updates to safety alerts through reliable, high-throughput streaming systems.

Our work sits at the center of Life360’s technical ecosystem. We collaborate closely with mobile, backend, and data teams to build scalable, resilient infrastructure while tackling complex distributed systems challenges like schema evolution, data consistency, zero-downtime migrations, and platform reliability at scale. We are a platform-focused, AI-Native team. AI is a core collaborator across the full product lifecycle: messaging architecture, protocol design, performance at scale, and incident response. We move faster, build more resiliently, and go deeper on the hard problems of distributed messaging because of it.

The team is currently leading major innovation initiatives, including migrating from MSK to Confluent Cloud, managing organization-wide schema registries and protocol buffer definitions, and building the next generation of streaming services. Our stack includes Kafka and Kafka Streams, Spring Boot microservices, Go-based tooling, and a modern cloud-native platform on AWS.

You'll help define and deliver the next generation of Kafka-first streaming infrastructure, driving the solution to meet the next company goal for high availability on scale. 

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Messaging team, you'll build and maintain the streaming infrastructure that powers Life360's real-time features. This role is hands-on and collaborative - you'll design services, write code, troubleshoot production issues, and help shape the team's technical direction. We're looking for someone who enjoys working in a distributed systems environment, values clear communication, and thrives on solving complex problems alongside a small, focused team. We work AI-natively - you'll be expected to direct AI agents as a core part of your daily workflow, not as an afterthought.

• Design, build, and maintain streaming services using Kafka, Spring Boot, and Spring Cloud Stream
• Develop and manage Kafka connectors for data integration (DynamoDB, S3, custom sinks/sources)
• Own schema management and evolution using Protocol Buffers, Schema Registry, and multi-language code generation
• Support ongoing platform migrations, including multi-cluster consumption patterns and infrastructure transitions
• Build monitoring, observability, and operational tooling to ensure system reliability
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on API design, data contracts, and integration patterns
• Write infrastructure as code using Terraform and automate deployments through CI/CD pipelines
• Participate in on-call rotation and incident response
• Mentor team members and contribute to team processes, technical standards, and help evolve the team's AI-native engineering practices
• Work with AI (Claude Code) as a first-class collaborator - orchestrating agents to scaffold services, generate IaC, draft schema definitions, and accelerate code review
• Apply agentic workflows to reduce overall cycle time and operational overhead

For candidates based in the US, the salary range for this position is $148,000 to $216,500 USD. 

Note: 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.

• 6+ years of backend software engineering experience
• Strong proficiency with Java and Spring Boot (this is our primary stack)
• Experience with Apache Kafka or similar distributed streaming platforms
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts: consistency, fault tolerance, replication, and data durability
• Comfortable with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred) and containerized deployments
• Familiarity with agentic workflows, prompt/eval engineering

• Problem-solving mindset - You structure ambiguous problems precisely before reaching for a tool, AI or otherwise
• Collaborative approach - You communicate clearly, work well across teams, and value diverse perspectives
• Ownership mentality - You take responsibility for your work from design through production and beyond
• AI-native working style - You use AI tooling (Claude Code or equivalent) as a genuine development partner: delegating discrete tasks, reviewing outputs critically, and running parallel workstreams rather than hand-holding one agent at a time
• Thoughtful communication - You can explain technical tradeoffs and articulate ideas effectively

We believe culture fit and problem-solving ability matter more than checking every technical box. We're happy to help you grow into areas where you have less experience.

• Experience with Go (we use it for CLI tools and some services)
• Familiarity with gRPC and Protocol Buffers
• Background in stream processing frameworks (Kafka Streams, Flink)
• Experience with schema registries and schema evolution strategies
• Knowledge of Confluent Platform or Confluent Cloud
• Understanding of CI/CD patterns, GitHub Actions, and artifact management (Maven, Nexus)
• Experience with observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, DataDog)
• Previous work on large-scale platform migrations or infrastructure modernization projects

• 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.
• 401(k) plan with company matching program in the US and RRSP with DPSP plan for Canadian employees.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for mental wellness.
• Flexible PTO and 12 company wide days off throughout the year.
• Learning & Development programs.
• Equipment, tools, and reimbursement support for a productive remote environment.
• Free Life360 Platinum Membership for your preferred circle.

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. 

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 below qualifications, you should still seriously consider applying!