Location: Remote, New York City, or Oakland
Role Type: Full-time
Compensation: $139,050 or $159,650, depending on seniority
Visa sponsorship: Not available
Hires remotely in: United States
Experience: 3+ years of technical experience
As a Forward-Deployed Software Engineer, you will be directly on the front lines of our work, collaborating with state Departments of Corrections, government IT staff, and justice-impacted individuals to scope, adapt, and integrate Recidiviz's data platform and products into their existing environments. You will partner with state leadership to understand their goals and constraints, define the right technical solutions, and then dive into complex, real-world data systems to make those solutions a reality.
You will also act as a crucial feedback loop. By gaining first-hand context of what works and what doesn't "in the wild," you will collaborate with our core product, design, and engineering teams to level up our platforms. You should have strong engineering fundamentals, an affinity for problem-solving in ambiguous environments, and the patience and customer savvy to turn complex deployments into long-term partnerships.
Core responsibilities- Scope for impact: Collaborate with state agency leadership and IT staff to understand their unique policy objectives and system constraints, working with cross-functional teammates to translate their needs into clear technical approaches and deployment roadmaps.
- Problem-solve in the wild: Untangle messy data and legacy systems, writing scripts and crafting creative technical solutions to ensure successful deployments in unique customer environments.
- Level up the product: Translate on-the-ground challenges into actionable insights for our core engineering and product teams, contributing code to our platform and products to make them more scalable and configurable.
- Build trust: Engage directly with customer stakeholders-from database administrators to agency executives-balancing technical rigor with deep empathy and clear communication.
- Travel occasionally: Join state partners on-site (10%) to scope new projects, build relationships, unblock technical hurdles in person, and ensure our tools are driving real impact.
Wild successHere are a few things you might accomplish in your first year at Recidiviz that would demonstrate wild success in this role:
- Successfully scope and lead the technical integration of Recidiviz with a new state partner, unlocking actionable insights for agency staff and leadership within months.
- Identify a recurring impact bottleneck across multiple deployments, build a feature to solve it, and successfully merge it into our core engineering platform.
- Build deep trust and collaboration with an overburdened agency IT team, turning them into enthusiastic champions of Recidiviz's technology and approach.
Minimum qualifications- High empathy and kindness
- 3+ years of practical experience building, customizing, and deploying software in a collaborative environment
- Experience scoping technical projects, defining product requirements, or translating business/policy needs into technical solutions
- Experience in a customer-facing and/or cross-functional role, with the ability to communicate technical concepts to both engineering teams and non-technical stakeholders
- Strong proficiency in SQL and relational databases, with an appetite for wrangling large-scale, messy data
- Experience writing code and scripts in Python, Javascript/Typescript, or similar languages
- A high tolerance for ambiguity and the grit to explore, experiment, and document solutions in complex legacy environments
- Willingness to travel occasionally to partner states
- Bachelor's degree in a technical field or equivalent experience
Preferred qualifications- Experience working with government technology, legacy enterprise systems, or highly regulated data (e.g., CJIS, HIPAA)
- Experience building and managing data pipelines or utilizing ETL tools
- Comfort working in cloud infrastructure environments like GCP, AWS, or Azure
- Experience with React and full-stack app development
- Familiarity with AI tools like Claude, Cursor, or Copilot
- Willingness to travel to state partners - see a map of our current partners here
CompensationCompensation 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: $139,050 or $159,650, depending on seniority.
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
- 12 weeks of paid parental leave
- 401(k) retirement plan with 5% company match and no vesting period
- Complimentary One Medical membership (depending 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
