Senior Fullstack Engineer

About Citizen

Citizen is is the #1 public safety app in the US, used by over 15 million people to stay safe in real time, powered by verified 911 data and live updates. Behind the scenes, we also work with hospitals, venue operators, and corporate security teams to give them better visibility, faster response times, and direct access to critical incident data.

Our Enterprise offering provides real-time situational awareness to teams responsible for protecting people at scale—from nationwide retailers to small businesses across the U.S. It enables teams to track alerts across their locations in Citizen’s active markets and will soon allow them to notify employees to keep them safe and informed.

We’re backed by $100M+ from Founders Fund, 8VC, and Greycroft. Our mission is to Protect the World, and our vision is a Global Safety Network where people protect each other.

Our Challenges

• Zero-to-One: There is no other company doing what Citizen does in the way that Citizen is doing it. There is no playbook for building a consumer public safety product, so we learn and adapt as we go. We build fast, learn quickly, and rapidly iterate until we get it right.

• Scaling & Bursting: During significant events, we see hundreds of thousands of simultaneously connected users and their associated live streams. Seconds matter in safety and our core systems must efficiently support these traffic patterns to give our users the information they need when it matters most.

• Machine Learning: We process thousands of hours of audio and hundreds of videos daily, looking for incidents that impact our users’ safety. After distilling this information, we must determine which users need to receive alerts. To do this at scale, we’ve built AI/ML models for audio analysis, notification delivery, and video moderation using state-of-the-art technology.

• Operational Efficiency: Citizen is a complex network of information and relies on our 24/7 operations team to keep eyes on the machines, escalate decisions, and act with urgency. This team depends on a suite of internally built software to do their day to day work with speed and precision.

• Radio Hardware: We build our own software-defined, radio-based devices to consume all radio dispatch in every major city, whether analog or digital.

About the Role

• Thrive in an environment where adaptability, speed, and impact are at the core of everything we build.

• Design and build systems for scale, modularity, and flexibility – without compromising on high availability, low latency, and scalability.

• Take operational responsibility for the services you build. A strong owner's mindset is essential.

• Collaborate closely with a multidisciplinary team of product managers, designers, and engineers to deliver a consistent real-time experience for our users.

• Maintain rigor in code quality, best practices, and code reviews, while balancing product tradeoffs.

• Balance development across multiple codebases and systems, working with roughly a 60/40 split between frontend and backend development.

Our Stack

• Mobile: Swift (iOS), Kotlin (Android)

• Web: React.js, TypeScript

• Services: Go for transactional systems; Python for analytical systems

• Datastores: MySQL, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, Memcached, Redis

• Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform

Requirements

• Proven experience building performant and delightful web applications.

• Experience working with Javascript and a modern web framework (React, Vue, Ember, Angular, etc).

• Some experience with backend API development (Node or Go experience ideal).

• A track record of demonstrable ownership and technical leadership.

• 5+ years of engineering experience, focusing primarily on full stack development

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Salary Range

This role offers a base salary of $200,000 - $225,000 per year, plus equity.

Compensation & Benefits
We offer competitive salary, equity, and a full benefits package, including:

• At least one fully employer-sponsored medical plan option

• Dental and vision coverage, with a small employee contribution

• Unlimited PTO

• Up to 14 weeks paid parental leave (for all parents)

• Monthly tech stipend

• Free mental health support

• Hybrid work environment + catered lunches (NYC HQ)

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Citizen
Citizen is an equal opportunity employer. We’re building a team that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve — across race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, and background.

We know that diverse teams make better decisions and build more effective products. If you don’t meet every listed qualification, we still encourage you to apply. Skills, potential, and lived experience matter.