Engineering Manager - Camera Firmware Platform

Verkada is transforming physical security with an integrated, privacy-sensitive AI platform spanning video security, access control, environmental sensors, alarms, intercoms, and visitor management. Operating across 170+ countries with over 2 million deployed devices, Verkada powers real-time security for more than 30,000 enterprise customers.

As the Engineering Manager for Camera Firmware Platform, you will lead a high-caliber team of storage, firmware, and embedded systems engineers responsible for the reliability, power management, storage endurance, and performance of firmware running across a fleet of 1.8+ million perpetually online cameras. You will set the technical vision and roadmap for on-camera storage stacks (ext4, UBIFS, SD/eMMC, raw NAND) and cross-cutting firmware platform services (boot/shutdown optimization, IPC, memory management, and remote OTA updates). Working onsite at HQ in San Mateo, you will combine deep technical direction with team leadership, partnering closely with Hardware, Computer Vision, Streaming, Cloud Infrastructure, and Security teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Hiring: Lead, grow, and mentor a high-performing team of systems and firmware engineers; recruit top-tier embedded talent and drive engineering execution.
• Technical Strategy & Roadmap: Define the multi-quarter technical roadmap for camera storage and firmware platforms, balancing fleet-wide investments against new hardware launches.
• On-Camera Storage Stack Ownership: Own the end-to-end on-device storage stack—including filesystems, video layout/indexing, power-loss protection, partition encryption, and flash media qualification.
• Firmware Platform & Boot Optimization: Optimize boot/shutdown paths to maximize video retention, manage DRAM/flash footprints, and prevent power brownouts via Dynamic Frequency Scaling (DFS).
• Device State & Observability: Orchestrate device state transitions (service restarts, OTA updates, DSP pipelines) and build fleet-wide crash telemetry, core dump analysis, and hardware-in-the-loop disaster testing.
• Fleet-Wide Reliability Metrics: Track and optimize retention metrics, storage health, crash rates, memory pressure, and boot performance across millions of active devices.

Requirements

Technical Depth & Engineering Leadership

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in embedded systems, OS internals, or systems software.
• 2+ years of direct management or technical leadership experience guiding high-performing embedded systems, firmware, or infrastructure teams.
• High proficiency in C/C++ systems programming; experience with Go or Python is preferred.
• Hands-on experience designing storage systems for continuous, high-throughput write workloads (such as video recording).
• Practical experience profiling memory, power, CPU, and IPC performance on resource-constrained embedded devices.
• Proven experience debugging complex OS, driver, or filesystem issues across large production device fleets.

Education & Onsite Requirement

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Willingness and ability to work onsite 5 days per week at Verkada HQ in San Mateo, CA.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Linux kernel fundamentals, device drivers, and embedded Linux build systems.
• Deep knowledge of storage fundamentals: raw NAND flash behavior, SD/eMMC protocols, UBIFS/ext4 fault tolerance, write amplification, and power-loss protection.
• Familiarity with camera/video SoCs (e.g., Ambarella), ISP/DSP pipelines, and video encoding standards.
• Background building OTA firmware update systems or telemetry pipelines for large-scale IoT fleets.
• Experience with hard drives, RAID arrays (mdadm, ZFS), SMART monitoring, or NVR/NAS appliances.

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Compensation & Equity: Annual on-target earnings of $200,000 – $315,000 USD + Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) equity grants.
• Comprehensive Healthcare: Medical, vision, and dental coverage with 100% employer-paid premiums for employees and 80% for dependents under select plans.
• Financial & Retirement: 401(k) program with company match (starting Jan 2027), Health Savings Account (HSA) with annual employer contributions, and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA).
• Workplace Perks: Healthy lunches provided daily, commuter benefits, professional development stipends, and wellness/fitness perks.
• Paid Time Off: Flexible PTO, firmwide extended holidays, paid sick time, and generous paid parental leave with fertility benefits.