Sr. Software Engineer, Video Pipeline (Remote or SF Bay Area)

At Spot AI, we’re building the future of intelligent operations, powered by the untapped potential of video. While we started with revolutionizing video surveillance, today we’re at the forefront of using cameras as sensors and AI Agents to automate human tasks across the physical world.

Our leading edge platform and award winning technology helps mid-market and enterprise businesses improve safety, security and operational efficiency by transforming video footage into actionable insights. From reducing downtime on manufacturing lines, to automating SOP checks at car washes, to scaling real-time monitoring across construction sites and mobile surveillance units, we give organizations a smarter way to run their operations and drive better business outcomes.

We are currently deployed across 10,000+ locations, serving some of the largest names in manufacturing, construction, logistics and retail. Whether through easy-to-build custom AI Agents that detect risks before they happen, or integrations with central monitoring centers to reduce false alarms, our vision is bold: to become the intelligence layer for every camera in the physical world.

Our exceptionally talented team has created a high growth trajectory that has attracted almost $100 million in investment from top venture firms, including Redpoint, Scale Venture Partners, Bessemer, StepStone and Qualcomm.

Ready to learn more? Check out our YouTube channel.

We are an extremely passionate and ambitious team building a company designed to outlast our lifetime. 

No matter the role or level, Spotans (our team members) share a common DNA, and we’re looking for more teammates who share the same high-performance mindset:

• Relentless Drive: You have extreme ambition and something to prove. Challenges fuels you. Building isn’t just what you do; it’s who you are.
• Builder’s Mentality: You thrive on creating new solutions, not maintaining the status quo. If you've founded a company, been employee number 1 - 20, or have run a venture for over two years, we’re especially excited to meet you!
• High Hustle, High Humility: You combine high IQ with high EQ, a low ego, and an unyielding work ethic that pushes you to be among the best at what you do.

Our cultural pillars guide how we operate. We:

• Spend Strategically. We maximize resources and minimize waste.
• Push for Progress. We make decisions, move fast, and celebrate action.
• Obsess Over Customers: We remove friction and add value to create delight.
• Trust Our Team: Respect, trust and collaboration are non-negotiable.
• Act Like Owners: We say what we’ll do, and we do what we say, taking pride and responsibility in our work.
• Never Stop Having Fun: We’re creating something epic, and we’re having fun doing it.

You’re a seasoned video systems engineer who thrives on building complex, high-performance systems. You’ve spent the past 7+ years honing your craft in professional software engineering environments, and at least 3 of those have been focused on building or optimizing video pipelines using tools like GStreamer or FFmpeg. You’re comfortable with writing Rust code and bonus points if you’ve built gstreamer pipelines in Rust.

You love to experiment, iterate, and get things working in the wild. You understand the full flow of video data—from ingestion and decoding, to compression and streaming—and you know how to tune performance in resource-constrained environments like edge devices.

You have:

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong focus on performance and reliability.
  
• 3+ years building production-ready video pipelines with GStreamer, FFmpeg, or similar frameworks
  
• Hands-on experience with streaming protocols like WebRTC, RTSP, or HLS and codecs like H.264, H.265
  
• Experience coding in Rust or C/C++ programmers comfortable with using Rust, and deploying applications in Linux environments
  
• A problem-solving mindset, strong communication skills, and a desire to work cross-functionally

And you’d describe yourself as:

• Mission-aligned. Excited about the real-world impact of video intelligence and motivated by the opportunity to shape what the next decade of video AI looks like.
• Self-motivated and accountable. You excel with ownership and autonomy, producing high quality outcomes with minimal direction and oversight.

This role is all about impact and ownership. You'll take the lead on evolving our edge-based video processing stack—starting with projects that will immediately improve latency, reliability, and video quality for thousands of customers across real-world environments.

In this role, you’ll:

• Own the design, development, and scaling of our video pipeline for edge devices, ensuring real-time processing and efficient performance
• Optimization for Intel and NVIDIA GPU encoders and decoders.
• Collaborate with product and hardware teams to optimize video quality across different camera models and network conditions
• Lead initiatives to instrument and monitor performance, then design tools and improvements that help the entire team ship better video experiences faster
• Evaluate and integrate new protocols and codecs that improve efficiency or enable new customer use cases
• Contribute clean, reliable, and well-documented code to a growing codebase that ships often
• Work closely with support and customer teams to troubleshoot live issues and deliver customer-obsessed solutions

You’ll have real ownership and autonomy from Day 1—and you’ll be building the systems that make Spot AI the most reliable and intelligent video platform in the world.

• A place that gives you the room to learn from failure while driving excellence.
• A culture where hard work that drives great outcomes is expected, celebrated, and rewarded.
• A place where you can make industry-wide impact and contribute to one of the most exciting technologies of our time
• Building systems that power 10,000+ customer locations and process millions of hours of real-time video
• Working with and learning from an exceptional team of engineers, with deep technical expertise across AI, edge computing, and systems design
• A hands-on role where your ideas go from prototype to production in a matter of days—not quarters
• Taking full ownership of the video pipeline and helping shape the future of AI-driven camera systems
• Getting to experiment, optimize, and innovate at the edge—solving performance challenges that few engineers get to work on
• The chance to turn cameras into smart, proactive tools that help real people and businesses stay safer and run better

• Annual Base Salary Range: $195,000 - $220,000. The offered salary will depend on your location within the U.S. and your demonstrated skills and competencies for the role. Your recruiter will provide the specific range for your area as you progress through the interview process.
• Meaningful early stage equity
• Medical, dental and vision plan options with little-to-no cost for employees and dependents
• Company paid short- and long-term disability plans
• Company paid life insurance
• 401K with Employer Match

Come build the future of Video AI with us!

We are creating and cultivating a diverse and inclusive culture where we celebrate individuals for what they accomplish, no matter who they are!  As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.