Lead Software Engineer (Backend)

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.

What You Will Do

• 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

Who You Are

• 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
• 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.

What Success Looks Like Within Your First Year:

• Core camera and streaming paths are reliable and well understood across macOS and Linux
• The team operates with shared context and direction
• Technical decisions are made deliberately and communicated clearly
• AV / Sensing work integrates smoothly with Motion, Vision, and the broader Viam platform
• Customer issues are driven to resolution with ownership and follow-through

The starting salary for this role is between $205,000 - $235,000/year.