Staff Software Engineer, Ads Engineering (AI-Native)

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 95.8 million monthly active users (MAU), as of December 31, 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 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 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 and help teammates earlier in their AI workflow adoption get up to speed.
• Continuous learning: The tooling is changing fast. You stay current and bring recommendations to the team when something would meaningfully improve how we work.

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

Join us as we build the next evolution of our backend services to support Life360’s continued global growth. As part of the Ads team, you will help scale and modernize our AdServer and Exchange platform — a high-availability, low-latency distributed system processing billions of requests and events per day.

We are evolving our backend architecture to power monetization across our ecosystem at massive scale. You will partner closely with Architecture and Product teams to expand our advertising capabilities, integrate new demand and supply partners, and support 20+ billion daily events.

Together, we are building systems that are resilient under heavy load, horizontally scalable, and flexible enough to meet rapidly evolving product demands. As a Staff Engineer, you will guide technical direction while remaining hands-on, delivering reliable, high-performance Java-based services within AWS infrastructure that directly support Life360’s growth.

At Life360, our teams are motivated by impact, thrive when empowered with high agency, are always curious, and build with engineering excellence as a first principle.

As a Staff Level Backend Cloud Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in architecting and developing robust ad servers and ad ecosystems that seamlessly integrate with third-party services. You will be responsible for designing scalable and efficient backend systems that support high-volume ad transactions and deliver real-time performance. Your expertise will drive the implementation of innovative features, ensuring optimal functionality and user experience. Collaborating closely with cross-functional teams, you will leverage cloud technologies to enhance system reliability and performance, while also addressing security and compliance requirements. This position offers the opportunity to shape the future of digital advertising through cutting-edge solutions and strategic technical leadership.

For candidates based in the US, the salary range for this position is $152,000 to $280,500 USD. For candidates based out of Canada, the salary range for this position is $220,000 to $260,000  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.

• Shape the technical direction of Life360’s Ads AdServer and Exchange platform, ensuring it scales reliably to support 20+ billion daily events with strict latency and availability targets.
• Drive architectural decisions that improve system resiliency, fault tolerance, and performance across distributed, multi–data center environments.
• Elevate the engineering bar by setting standards for design quality, scalability, observability, and operational excellence.
• Enable revenue growth by integrating demand and supply partners and strengthening Real-Time Bidding and auction capabilities.
• Partner with Product and Design to unlock new monetization opportunities through innovative ad formats and platform capabilities.
• Anticipate scaling challenges and proactively design solutions before they impact customers or business performance.
• Lead complex technical initiatives end-to-end, aligning multiple teams around clear architectural outcomes.
• Advance automation and quality practices, including AI-driven API validation and testing strategies, to improve velocity without compromising stability.
• Improve platform reliability by strengthening monitoring, incident response, and root cause analysis practices.
• Mentor senior engineers and act as a force multiplier, increasing the overall effectiveness and technical depth of the organization.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field is required.
• 8+ years experience and deep expertise in Java and multi-threaded system design, with the ability to optimize for performance under heavy concurrency.
• Familiarity with AdTech ecosystems, including advertiser technologies or Real-Time Bidding frameworks, is highly desirable.
• 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
• Experience Integrating 3rd party Demand & Supply partners, is a plus.
• A track record of architecting and operating high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems at significant scale.
• Demonstrated success scaling systems across data centers, including replication strategies and distributed data management.
• Strong judgment in balancing short-term delivery with long-term architectural sustainability.
• Experience influencing technical strategy across teams without direct authority.
• Proven ability to translate business objectives—particularly in advertising or monetization ecosystems—into scalable technical solutions.
• Solid database expertise and a strong understanding of data consistency, performance trade-offs, and capacity planning.
• Experience operating within cloud-native environments, ideally AWS-based infrastructures.
• Feel comfortable with the entire client flow and how it interacts with the various business components (Admin, App, Analytics etc).
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to align engineering, product, and business stakeholders around shared outcomes.

• 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!

#LI-Remote

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