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Senior Software Engineer - Backend

Remote, New York City, or Oakland, CA

Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland, CA

Role Type: Full-time

Compensation: $159,650

Visa sponsorship: Not available

Hires remotely in: United States

Experience: 4+ years

Recidiviz is thrilled to be hiring a Senior Software Engineer - Backend to join our team! We’re a small, fast-moving group that develops and maintains the data platform that powers Recidiviz’s work and impact among criminal justice agencies. That’s where you come in. We’re looking for someone with strong technical design instincts, comfort working on features that span across multiple sub-systems, a willingness to dive into tough problems and diverse data, and a collaborative and kind nature.

About us

Recidiviz is creating safer, healthier communities by improving outcomes for people in the criminal justice system. We build technology to reduce the number of people in prison and to help criminal justice leaders embrace data-driven decision-making. 

Using software tools and thoughtful product design, we’ve been able to safely and permanently reduce incarceration and improve outcomes. We work side-by-side with leaders of the criminal justice system, people in prison and on supervision, and ecosystem partners to build a better path forward. In addition to the revenue we earn from state partners, some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations support our work.

People who succeed at Recidiviz lead with kindness and humility, assume good intent, learn from failure, and fix problems when they see them. They are excited to work arm in arm with government leadership and staff to improve outcomes. They are great listeners. They build deep relationships with and empathy for the people we work with and the people who our mission serves, even when those two groups feel at odds. 

About the role

As a Senior Software Engineer - Backend on our team, you will help develop and maintain the data platform that powers our work among corrections and supervision agencies. This person will work with the rest of our engineering team to understand where the limitations of our existing infrastructure are holding us back, and where there are opportunities for drastically accelerating the rest of the organization. This person will need to have a solid grasp of engineering practices, a willingness to dive into arduous problems and diverse data, and a collaborative and kind nature to add to our culture.

Core responsibilities

  • Expand our data platform, empowering us to scale across the entire country, in all phases of the criminal justice system
  • Work with our engineering and data team members to build testable and maintainable features from end to end
  • Collaborate with teammates in our state-facing roles to ensure our work is scalable across all states
  • Ensure the long-term health of our engineering organization by maintaining high bars for security, privacy, operations, quality, documentation, and testing

Wild success

Here are a few things you might accomplish in your first year at Recidiviz that would demonstrate wild success in this role:

  • Accelerating the work of state teams - Your work on the data platform, and your role in supporting the state teams have significantly increased the amount that those teams can accomplish.
  • Uplevel the engineering team - Your contributions to our engineering culture and processes, as well as your support for your teammates, has helped set our team up to achieve more impact sooner.

Minimum qualifications

  • 4+ years of practical experience building production software in a collaborative environment
  • Experience in a cross-functional setting, capable of working closely with Product Management, Design, and Data Science
  • Professional work experience writing code in Python, or in another general purpose language and are excited to learn Python
  • A desire to “wear many hats” and make contributions across our technical stack, in many areas of our organization
  • Comfort working directly with deployed systems to ensure high uptime, secure configuration, and rapid development

Preferred qualifications

  • Experience developing large-scale data processing systems, working closely with a data model representing some real-world domain
  • Familiarity with our technical stack would be a plus, including Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery, Apache AIrflow, Apache Beam

Compensation

Compensation is standardized based on roles and responsibilities. This ensures equitable compensation and responsible stewardship of our resources. As such, we do not negotiate compensation offers. 

The compensation for this role is: $159,650.

What we offer

  • Effective, extremely thoughtful colleagues, working together on a mission that matters
  • 90% medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for you and your dependents
  • Flexible time off, including 20 days of PTO, 3 days of paid volunteering time, and 13 paid holidays per year
  • 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
  • 12 weeks of paid parental leave
  • Complimentary One Medical membership (availability based on location)
  • Partnership with Carrot to provide employees with inclusive fertility and family-forming benefits, as well as a small but growing number of hormonal health and gender-affirming care benefits
  • Monthly ClassPass credit for personal wellness
  • Free mental health support via Talkspace
  • Well-located offices in Oakland and Manhattan, with the flexibility to work remotely or go into either office as you choose
  • An annual company offsite and other ad-hoc gatherings
  • All the exhilarating challenges and stretch opportunities of a tech startup, combined with the mission-driven heart of a nonprofit

More about Recidiviz

Recidiviz was an all-volunteer effort until early 2019, when Clementine, Andrew, and Joshua founded the organization. Since then, we’ve built an A-team of software engineers, designers, product managers and domain experts, from companies like Google, Apple, Dropbox, Opower, and Sidewalk Labs. Recidiviz was part of Y-Combinator’s 2019 class and has received support from some of the most respected philanthropists and foundations, including Ford Foundation, Mackenzie Scott, Schmidt Futures, Arnold Ventures, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Mozilla Foundation.

Today, Recidiviz works with (and earns revenue from) over 18 state partners – big and small, red and blue – and covers more than 40% of the US incarcerated population. We have helped to get tens of thousands of people out of the criminal justice system, safely and equitably, and saved states nearly $1 billion. In the next five years, Recidiviz plans to partner with 40 states and help 250,000 people who are stuck in the system to get out and stay out. In addition to partnering with state Departments of Corrections, Recidiviz collaborates with and learns from partners – from organizations like the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA) to community based organizations and justice-impacted individuals, whose perspectives guide our work.

To learn more about how we do what we do, check out our 2024 Year in Review, read some press coverage, or watch our TED Talk. And if you’re really keen to see our work, you can dive into our Github :).

An important note

Lasting change is always built on diversity. Recidiviz recruits, employs, trains, compensates and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, veteran status, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, gender identity and all protected status as required by applicable law. We consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a special need that requires accommodation, please let us know in your application. Even if you don't think you meet all the criteria above, drop your resume, and we'll take a look – you might be great for another role or another time!

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