Senior Software Engineer

Derq is an MIT spinoff building AI-powered traffic safety and smart infrastructure. We’re a team of passionate innovators, leveraging the latest in AI and technology to transform the future of mobility. Our platform enhances road safety and traffic management by turning real-time data into actionable insights for cities and road operators. Our patented technology collects and analyzes data from connected sensors like cameras, radar, and traffic signal controllers to help predict and prevent road incidents. We deploy edge and cloud solutions that make intersections and highways safer and smarter.

Role Overview

As a Senior Software Engineer at Derq, you will focus on designing, developing, and optimizing production systems that power our real‑time traffic and safety solutions. This is a hands-on engineering role with full ownership of code, performance, and system behavior from development through deployment.

You will work on performance‑critical, edge‑deployed systems, improving efficiency, reliability, scalability, and overall system behavior under real‑world conditions. This role sits between software engineering, and systems engineering— with a strong focus on shipping production‑ready solutions rather than research or pure architecture leadership. You will work in our standard C++ on Linux stack (CMake-based builds, shared libraries, and deployment patterns consistent with our production roadside / edge software).

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain production‑grade software systems with a focus on performance, reliability, and scalability
• Optimize system behavior for real‑time, low‑latency environments, including edge and cloud components
• Design, implement, and refine core system logic that improves platform performance, reliability, and scalability under real‑world conditions.
• Profile, analyze, and optimize system performance across CPU, memory, I/O, and networking
• Improve system observability through logging, monitoring, and diagnostics
• Work on end‑to‑end development, from design and implementation to testing, deployment, and support
• Collaborate with Deployment, ML, and Systems teams to validate and support improvements in production‑like and live environments.
• Debug and resolve complex production issues involving distributed or real‑time systems
• Write clean, maintainable, and well‑tested code following engineering best practices
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to improving engineering standards and tooling
• Support production systems post‑deployment and assist with performance tuning and issue resolution

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• 10+ years of professional experience in software engineering, systems engineering, or performance‑critical systems
• Strong hands‑on experience with modern  C++
• Solid experience working with Linux‑based systems
• Experience building and optimizing real‑time, high‑throughput, or low‑latency systems
• Strong understanding of:
• Data structures and algorithms
• System performance and resource optimization
• Debugging complex system behavior
• Experience with automated testing, system validation, and production debugging
• Familiarity with distributed systems concepts and system reliability
• Strong problem‑solving skills and ownership mindset