Founding Engineer - Consumer Apps

ABOUT PLACER.AI: 

Placer.ai is transforming how organizations understand the physical world. Our location analytics platform provides unprecedented visibility into locations, markets, and consumer behavior. Placer empowers thousands of customers—from Fortune 500 companies, to local governments and nonprofits— to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

What sets us apart? We've built the most advanced location intelligence platform in the market while maintaining an uncompromising commitment to privacy, proving that powerful analytics and responsible data practices can coexist.

Our growth reflects the market's demand: we reached $100M in annual recurring revenue within just 6 years of launching, achieved unicorn status with a $1B+ valuation in 2022, and continue to expand rapidly as one of North America's fastest-growing tech companies. We're creating a $100B+ market opportunity, and we're just getting started.

Named one of Forbes America's Best Startup Employers and a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company, we're building a culture where innovation thrives, collaboration is the norm, and every team member contributes to reshaping how the world understands location.

SUMMARY:

The Founding Engineer, Consumer Apps is the first engineer on Placer's new B2C team. Placer's core business sells to companies. This team builds products for consumers directly: apps whose users choose to contribute the data behind the Placer platform. The role works directly with the Vice President, Consumer Apps. It owns the technical product end to end: the mobile apps and the experience inside them, the backend behind them, the permission and consent flow, and the integration that brings what users contribute into the Placer platform.

The team is small and lean by design, gets its speed from AI tools, and runs on move fast, fail fast: ship small, measure honestly, and quickly either drop an idea or double down on it. The Founding Engineer takes the product from first prototype to launch and scale, and sets the technical foundation the team builds on as it grows.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Architect, build and ship Placer's first consumer apps on Android and iOS, plus the backend services behind them, as the team's first engineer, on an architecture that can scale to millions of users.
• Own the quality of the consumer experience: onboarding, the permission ask, the core engagement loop and every screen in between. Treat each step as a place a user can drop off, work hands-on from mockups to polished UI, and use funnel data and user feedback to decide what to fix next.
• Build the permission and consent flow to App Store and Google Play policy, in partnership with Legal and Privacy. This covers prominent disclosure, the grant from foreground to background location, and every step of the grant funnel.
• Instrument the full funnel from day one, starting with attribution (which channel and campaign brought each user), then install, registration, permission grant, engagement and retention. Every drop-off should be measurable.
• Own measurement and experimentation: the analytics and A/B testing setup, how each experiment is designed and read, and the funnel reporting the team makes decisions from.
• Ship on a move fast, fail fast cadence. Release small experiments in days, not months, measure each one against the funnel, and drop what doesn't work without getting attached to it. Own releases, store submission and review responses.
• Work AI-first. Use AI coding, design and testing tools as the default way to build, so a small, lean team ships at the pace of a much larger one.
• Embed Placer's existing data collection technology in the apps. Work with R&D and Data Science so the data reaches the Placer platform through its privacy pipeline, fit for use, with identifiable data separated at the point the privacy design requires.
• Build account integrity and user trust into the product from the start. This includes fraud and abuse controls for device integrity, location spoofing, emulators and duplicate accounts.
• Make the early technical calls on stack, architecture and vendors within Placer's engineering standards. Own the service in production, including monitoring, alerting, reliability and cost.
• Help hire and mentor the next engineers as the team grows, and set the practices they join into.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• 6+ years of software engineering experience, including at least 4 years on B2C products: consumer-facing mobile apps shipped to the general public
• A real passion for UX, with shipped consumer experiences the candidate can walk through screen by screen and explain the choices behind
• Does well in a move fast, fail fast environment: comfortable shipping imperfect first versions, reading the data, and throwing away work that doesn't perform
• Mastery of AI development tools such as coding agents and AI-assisted design, testing and code review, with concrete examples of how they multiplied the candidate's output on a small team
• A record of taking at least one consumer app from zero to launch as a founding or early engineer, and scaling it after launch
• Deep expertise on one native platform (Android/Kotlin or iOS/Swift) and working fluency on the other, or equivalent cross-platform experience with native modules
• Experience integrating SDKs into consumer mobile apps
• Backend experience building APIs and data services on a cloud platform (Python and GCP preferred)
• Direct experience with App Store and Google Play review, including data-safety declarations and working through policy rejections
• Clear written and verbal communication, and the judgment to raise risks early

NICE TO HAVES:

• Demonstrated use of AI tools to work more efficiently—whether professionally or personally—and a curiosity for finding new ways to apply them.
• Comfort integrating generative AI into day-to-day workflows to boost productivity, quality, and output.

WHY JOIN PLACER.AI? 

• Join a rocketship! We are pioneers of a new market that we are creating
• Take a central and critical role at Placer.ai
• Work with, and learn from, top-notch talent
• Competitive salary
• Excellent benefits
• Fully remote

The U.S. annualized pay range for this position is $200,000 - $240,000 USD. In addition, certain roles have the opportunity to earn sales-based commissions. Base pay offered within the stated range may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including job-related skills, professional experience, education and licenses (if applicable), work location and compensation market data.

Base pay is just a part of our total rewards program. Placer provides medical, dental and vision coverage as well as flexible time off, 401K and equity awards for certain roles.

Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

NOTEWORTHY LINKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PLACER 

• About Placer.ai
• Placer.ai's $100M round C funding (unicorn valuation!)
• See our data in action at The Anchor
• Placer.ai in the news
• Video: About Placer for Commercial Real Estate

Placer.ai is committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and promoting a safe, healthy working environment for all employees.

Placer.ai is an equal opportunity employer and has a global remote workforce. Placer.ai’s applicants are considered solely based on their qualifications, without regard to an applicant’s disability or need for accommodation. Any Placer.ai applicant who requires reasonable accommodations during the application process should contact Placer.ai’s Human Resources Department to make the need for an accommodation known.