Staff Backend Engineer - Alarms

San Mateo, CA United States

Who We Are

Designed with simplicity in mind, Verkada's six product lines — video security cameras, access control, environmental sensors, alarms, workplace, and intercoms — provide unparalleled building security through an integrated, cloud-based software platform. Over 33,500 organizations, including 96 companies in the Fortune 500, across 93 countries worldwide trust Verkada as their physical security layer for easier management, intelligent control, and scalable deployments. Founded in 2016 with more than $700M in funding raised to-date, Verkada has expanded rapidly with 15 offices and 2,200+ full-time employees.
 
About the Alarms Team: 
As a member of the Alarms engineering team, you will be responsible for building compelling user experiences for one of Verkada’s major new product categories. This is an opportunity to take ownership over software products which keep our customers protected in times of critical need. 
 
You’ll be working alongside a small, dynamic team of frontend, backend and firmware engineers to develop these experiences. Our team operates as a startup within a startup, so you can expect a lot of autonomy and impact on the direction of the Alarms product category. 
 
If you are an experienced, Backend Engineer who is excited about building new ways to keep people safe and secure, then we want to hear from you. 

The Role

Verkada’s Alarms team builds the intelligent systems that detect, verify, and respond to real-world security threats—whether it's a break-in or suspicious activity caught on video. We combine intrusion sensors, cameras, and AI to create a fast, reliable, and modern security experience.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, you’ll play a key role in designing and scaling our AI-driven detection and response workflows. These systems power automated threat identification, customer notifications, video verification, and emergency dispatch—all in real time. You’ll be joining a small, high-impact team working across Verkada’s hardware and cloud platforms to keep people and property safe.

What You’ll Do

  • Design and build low-latency, high-availability backend services that orchestrate alarm detection and response
  • Create flexible and extensible AI-powered workflows for intrusion and video monitoring use cases
  • Build distributed systems that integrate internal products and third-party services (e.g., notifications, transcription, dispatch)
  • Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, frontend, and firmware engineers to shape end-to-end customer experiences
  • Operate with autonomy and take ownership of systems from design through production
  • Champion best practices in testing, observability, and continuous deployment

What We’re Looking For

  • 5+ years of backend engineering experience in a production environment
  • Strong programming skills—Go preferred
  • Solid grasp of distributed system design, API architecture, and event-driven workflows
  • Experience with cloud infrastructure, preferably AWS
  • Background working with databases (e.g. Postgres) and scalable data systems (e.g. Kafka, Redis)
  • Track record of delivering robust, maintainable software in fast-paced teams

Bonus Points

  • Familiarity with Temporal or other workflow engines
  • Interest in building AI-integrated, real-time systems
  • Experience with Kubernetes, monitoring tools, and performance optimization

 

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).

Estimated Annual Pay Range

$130,000 - $280,000 USD

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.

Your application will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy. 

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