Lead Software Engineer (Backend)
About The Position
Viam helps companies unlock the power of AI, data and automation in the physical world. We provide a single platform for engineers of all disciplines to solve problems together and build solutions that are fast and future-proof. Viam powers solutions across robotics, food and beverage, climate tech, marine, industrial manufacturing, and more. Founded in 2020 by former MongoDB co-founder and CTO Eliot Horowitz, Viam is headquartered in New York City. Lead Software Engineer, Sensing (Backend) NYC-based team (Hybrid: 3+ days/week in office) About the Team/Role The Sensing team at Viam builds the software that makes cameras reliable, easy to commission, and performant across real-world hardware and network conditions. Cameras are the starting point for many solutions built on Viam which makes this a high impact team. We are hiring a Lead Engineer to set direction for camera, video, and audio streaming across the platform, working primarily in Golang, C, and C++ on ARM-based Linux devices and macOS. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will write code, but your primary responsibility is owning technical direction, systems judgment, and how the team operates. Deep AV or sensing expertise is valuable but not required. Strong engineers with solid fundamentals and leadership capability can learn domain-specific details on the job.
Requirements
- A systems-oriented technical leader who has owned direction and delivery
- Comfortable making decisions under ambiguity and incomplete information
- A clear, proactive communicator who can represent technical work to other engineers and stakeholders
- Experienced with low-level, performance-sensitive, or hardware-adjacent systems
- Someone who takes ownership from problem framing through resolution
Nice To Haves
- Deep AV or sensing expertise is valuable but not required. Strong engineers with solid fundamentals and leadership capability can learn domain-specific details on the job.
Responsibilities
- Set technical direction for camera, video, and audio streaming across the Viam platform
- Lead a specialized team working on camera integration, streaming pipelines, and hardware-adjacent systems
- Own technical decisions and tradeoffs from prioritization through execution
- Stay hands-on in the code while maintaining a systems-level view of product impact
- Debug and resolve complex production issues spanning hardware, drivers, OS subsystems, networking, and application-level code
- Collaborate closely with Motion, Vision, Robotics, and Solutions Engineering teams
- Balance proactive platform improvements with customer-driven work while maintaining reliability and code quality
- People management of the IC engineers on the team
Benefits
- 100% covered medical/dental/vision insurance plans, commuter benefits
- 25 days paid vacation and generous holiday observances
- Free lunch every day that you’re in the office
- One Medical Membership
- Citi Bike memberships
- Monthly wellness stipend to be used for a variety of fitness-related items like gym memberships, fitness classes, fitness equipment, and more
- Paid parental leave
- Reproductive Health Benefits, including Fertility Benefits and Abortion Access Travel Benefits
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
101-250 employees
