Software Engineer II (Backend)

About the role

Join the team turning internet intelligence into real-world security outcomes. Built on the world’s most comprehensive and accurate map of the Internet, the Censys Platform delivers real-time visibility and actionable intelligence needed to accelerate triage, investigate threats, hunt adversaries, and manage Internet exposure. We're trusted by half of the Fortune 500 and government agencies all around the world, and looking for people as passionate about the problems we're solving as we are.

At Censys, we're on a mission to provide best in class internet visibility and intelligence to the global security community. Our platform helps security teams uncover hidden threats, gain actionable insights, and build proactive defense strategies. Trusted by organizations worldwide, Censys cuts through the noise to surface the most critical risks, enabling teams to respond faster, and stay ahead of attackers. We're constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible to help our customers see and secure the internet more clearly than ever before.

Location:

This position is remote within the United States or Canada.

Role Summary:

Censys is seeking a Software Engineer II (Backend) to join our Exposure Management team. Exposure Management is a growth product for Censys. It combines our map of the Internet with customer context to show security teams which exposures matter most, including the risk that reaches them through their suppliers via Supplier Risk Intelligence. We're looking for an engineer who can build the product APIs behind these experiences, taking a well-scoped feature from design through launch with input from senior engineers.

You'll work primarily in Go, pulling together data and services from other Censys teams and partnering with frontend engineers to deliver APIs that are fast, well-shaped, and easy to build on. As with all roles at Censys, we expect a strong customer focus, a collaborative mindset, and a desire to keep learning.

What You'll Do:

Own small-to-medium product API features end to end, from technical design through launch, monitoring, and iteration

Build and extend the public REST and gRPC APIs behind Exposure Management and Supplier Risk Intelligence, including the risk event endpoints that power SIEM integrations with Splunk, Google SecOps, and Microsoft Sentinel

Partner with frontend engineers and product stakeholders on API contracts, filtering, pagination, and response shapes so customer-facing experiences stay fast and simple to build

Work with other Censys teams to integrate their data and services through gRPC and GCP PubSub, and agree on interfaces that hold up as both sides evolve

Profile and optimize API performance, from Postgres query plans and indexing to caching and payload size

Write tests, add observability, and take release and on-call responsibility for the services you ship

Bring customer feedback into design discussions and help onboard interns and newer engineers in your area

What You'll Bring:

A positive attitude biased towards action and iterative problem solving, learning as we grow every step of the way.

4+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend services.

Production experience with Go, or strong experience in another backend language (Python, Java) and the drive to become proficient in Go quickly.

Experience designing and consuming REST or gRPC APIs, ideally ones consumed by a frontend application.

Solid SQL skills and working knowledge of relational data modeling, indexing, and query performance.

A track record of building maintainable software: tests enforced in CI, meaningful monitoring and alerting, and thoughtful code reviews.

Clear written and verbal communication with engineers, product managers, and other teams.

Curiosity and a willingness to pick up new domains, tools, and parts of the stack.

What Sets You Apart:

Experience on security products, especially attack surface management, third-party risk or vulnerability management.

Experience building APIs that external developers or partners integrate against (OpenAPI specs, versioning, webhooks).

Experience with event-driven systems (GCP PubSub, Kafka) and patterns like idempotency and retries.

Experience deploying containerized services on Kubernetes in GCP or AWS.

Fluency with AI coding tools as a force multiplier for building better software.

A working understanding of how the Internet works. DNS record types, WHOIS, and Certificate Subject Alternative Names (SANs) are familiar territory

#LI-DNI

#LI-DNP

For high cost of living areas (San Francisco Bay, New York City, and Seattle), the expected salary range for this position is $137,000 USD - $164,000 USD, plus bonus eligibility and equity.

For all other US locations, the expected salary range for this position is $116,450 USD - $140,500 USD, plus bonus eligibility and equity.

In addition to our great compensation package, our benefits are effective on day one and include but are not limited to: 401k match, health, vision, dental, and more! Please see our careers page for more details.

Our roots are in Ann Arbor, Michigan and our innovation is fueled by the team's global perspectives. For this role, we are open to remote employees across the continental US or Canada.

Identity Verification

As part of our hiring process, all candidates who receive an offer of employment will be asked to complete an identity verification through CLEAR.

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