Senior Systems Engineer - Streaming
Verkada · San Mateo, United States · 1mo ago
Who We Are
Verkada is transforming how organizations protect their people and places with an integrated, privacy-sensitive AI-powered platform that includes solutions for video security, access control, air quality sensors, alarms, intercoms, and visitor management.
We’ve got serious momentum in the market: more than 30,000 customers (including 100+ of the Fortune 500), a $5.8B valuation, more than $1 billion in annualized bookings, and backing from CapitalG, Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Felicis Ventures, Next47 and more. Physical AI is one of the most consequential technology shifts of our time, and Verkada is at the center of it.
You can look at all kinds of communities to see our platform’s impact in the world. It's the retailer that uses our agentic AI to deter theft before it happens. The warehouse that uses AI-powered alerts to make sure its team is protected on the floor with proper PPE. The school that’s alerted to a threat in real-time and triggers a lockdown in seconds, not minutes. We’re rapidly scaling this impact: today, more than 2 million Verkada devices are deployed across 170+ countries.
Who We Are
Verkada is the leading cloud-managed physical security platform, uniting hardware, software, and AI to deliver enterprise-scale security and insights. At the core of our mission is video—powering everything from real-time monitoring to historical playback for tens of thousands of organizations worldwide.
The Streaming team owns the full-stack infrastructure powering the video experience for over 1M+.4M Verkada cameras. We take on complex streaming challenges to deliver live and recorded video with unmatched speed, reliability, and security. By continually advancing our technology, we ensure that every frame—whether live or months old—is always available instantly, seamlessly, and securely.
About the Role
As an Senior Systems Engineer (Video Streaming), you will design and implement streaming features that power our 1M+.4M deployed cameras (and next generation cameras). You’ll collaborate with firmware, backend, and native client teams to build and own a highly performant streaming capture experience for live and history videos. At the same time, you’ll help make our firmware components more efficient, secure and future-proof.
What You'll Do
- Design, develop, and optimize embedded video encoding and streaming pipelines for Verkada’s camera and security devices.
- Implement and tune hardware-accelerated video codecs (H.264, H.265/HEVC, AV1) for performance, quality, and low power consumption.
- Build and extend multimedia frameworks (e.g., GStreamer, FFmpeg) to support real-time video capture, processing, and delivery.
- Integrate and optimize streaming protocols (RTSP, RTP, RTMP, HLS, DASH, WebRTC) for low-latency, reliable video transport at scale.
- Profile and optimize startup time (TTFF), latency, rebuffering, and overall video QoE metrics.
- Debug issues in encoding pipelines, transport layers, and device utilization (CPU/GPU/ISP).
What You Bring
- BS or MS degree in Computer Science (or similar degree).
- 5+ years of professional experience in embedded systems development, with a focus on video streaming applications.
- Proficiency in C/C++ for embedded Linux environments.
- Must be willing and able to work onsite five days per week.
Nice to Have
- Strong hands-on experience with video codecs (H.264, H.265/HEVC, AV1) and hardware-accelerated encoding/decoding pipelines.
- Familiarity with multimedia frameworks such as GStreamer, FFmpeg, or custom video pipelines.
- Solid understanding of video streaming protocols (RTSP, RTP, RTMP, HLS, DASH, WebRTC) and adaptive bitrate streaming.
- Experience optimizing for low latency and startup time (TTFF) under constrained resources.
US Employee Benefits
Verkada is committed to fostering a workplace environment that prioritizes the holistic health and wellbeing of our employees and their families by offering comprehensive wellness perks, benefits, and resources. Our benefits and perks programs include, but are not limited to:
- Healthcare programs that can be tailored to meet the personal health and financial well-being needs - Premiums are 100% covered for the employee under at least one plan and 80% for family premiums under all plans
- Nationwide medical, vision and dental coverage
- Health Saving Account (HSA) with annual employer contributions and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) with tax saving options
- Expanded mental health support
- Paid parental leave policy & fertility benefits
- Time off to relax and recharge through our paid holidays, firmwide extended holidays, flexible PTO and personal sick time
- Professional development stipend
- Wellness/fitness benefits
- Healthy lunches provided daily
- Commuter benefits
Additional Information
- We do sponsor and take over sponsorship of employment visas for this role. If we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa.
Annual Pay Range
At Verkada, we want to attract and retain the best employees, and compensate them in a way that appropriately and fairly values their individual contribution to the company. With that in mind, we carefully consider a number of factors to determine the appropriate starting pay for an employee, including their primary work location and an assessment of a candidate's skills and experience, as well as market demands and internal parity. A Verkada employee may be eligible for additional forms of compensation, depending on their role, including sales incentives, discretionary bonuses, and/or equity in the company in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs)
Below is the annual on-target earnings (OTE) range for full-time employees for this position, comprised of base compensation and commissions (if applicable).
Verkada Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
As an equal opportunity employer, Verkada is committed to providing employment opportunities to all individuals. All applicants for positions at Verkada will be treated without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.
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