Lead Software Engineer, Platform

Viam is building the platform that makes robotics as programmable as software. Our software allows developers and companies to configure, control, and manage physical devices—from a single robot in a lab to fleets of machines deployed in the real world.

The company was founded by Eliot Horowitz, co-founder and former CTO of MongoDB, with the goal of making it dramatically easier to build and operate systems that interact with the physical world.

Today Viam powers developers and organizations working across robotics, industrial automation, research, and connected devices. We’re a ~100-person company headquartered in New York City.

Building software for machines introduces challenges that traditional software systems rarely face. Devices operate in real-world environments, networks are unreliable, and software must interact with hardware, sensors, and real-time data.

At Viam, engineers build the platform and tools that make those machines programmable, observable, and manageable at scale.

New York City (Hybrid 3+ days per week in office)

This team owns the infrastructure that moves data from devices to the cloud and makes it usable across the Viam platform. That spans real-time streaming pipelines, backend services, and the platform APIs. Reliability, latency, and correctness here affect every solution built on Viam. The team works primarily in Go and C++. Reporting directly to the CEO.

As Lead you'll manage a team of 4-6 engineers, staying hands-on across technical leadership, development, and people management. Focused on backend platform challenges that power Viam.

• Set priorities and technical direction for the team.
• Lead the architecture of the end-to-end streaming pipeline from device to cloud.
• Drive the reliability and performance of the services and platform APIs.
• Own cross-team problems and take them to resolution.
• Communicate clearly on progress, tradeoffs, and risks to engineering leadership.

We're looking for a technical lead with strong systems judgment who can own direction for a team and work cross-functionally across engineering.

• Experience leading a team of engineers and setting technical direction.
• Background building and scaling backend or platform infrastructure in production, ideally in Go.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure and distributed systems at scale.
• Sound judgment on system design and tradeoffs under real constraints.
• Track record of driving cross-team projects from ambiguity to production.
• Experience with streaming systems or real-time data transport is a plus. 
• Robotics or IoT experience is not required.

Our culture emphasizes ownership, curiosity, and decisive execution.

• This space has brand new challenges and we all have an appetite to learn
• Good work in production beats perfect work in review
• We know that the best teams help each other succeed through feedback

The salary for this role is between $220,000 - 250,000 /year. Your exact offer will vary based on factors, including experience level, skillset, market location, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. We recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced, or more senior, than this job description as posted. In these situations, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.

Your exact offer will vary based on factors including experience level, skillset, market location, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. We recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced, or more senior, than this job description as posted. In these situations, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.

• Vision Driven
• Collaborate Openly
• Act Decisively
• Succeed Through Diversity
• Hold Ourselves Accountable
• Lead with Curiosity

Viam does not accept unsolicited agency resumes or calls from recruitment agencies or search firms. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or Viam employees. Viam is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.