Senior Audio/Video Engineer

About Knightscope

Knightscope is a security technology company building the Nation’s First Autonomous Security Force. The Company combines autonomous machines, advanced software, and human expertise to help protect people, property, and critical infrastructure. Knightscope’s long-term mission is to make the United States of America the safest country in the world.

About the Role

Knightscope is seeking two Senior Audio/Video Engineers to own the real-time audio and video infrastructure across the ICM and Signals platforms. These engineers will be responsible for the full A/V stack — from WebRTC ingest and GStreamer pipeline architecture to low-latency audio processing and multi-stream rendering. Given the thin talent pool for combined WebRTC and low-latency audio expertise, both positions will be recruited simultaneously.

 Location Requirement: Full-time, on-site at Sunnyvale HQ (No relocation provided)

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain the end-to-end real-time video pipeline: WebRTC/RTSP/RTMP ingest, hardware-accelerated transcoding, and simultaneous multi-stream rendering for up to 10 concurrent robot video feeds.


• Architect and optimize GStreamer-based multi-branch pipelines for video capture, processing, recording, and cloud upload (S3) — including codec selection, pad/cap negotiation, and plugin development.


• Own the full audio subsystem: real-time two-way audio, SIP/VoIP integration (pjsip/Asterisk), text-to-speech (AWS Polly), and talk-down functionality with a sub-200ms end-to-end round-trip latency target.


• Implement and optimize WebRTC signaling, ICE, DTLS-SRTP, and media server components for reliable low-latency communication across distributed robot deployments.


• Profile, debug, and tune A/V pipeline performance for low latency, high throughput, and resilience under concurrent multi-robot load and variable network conditions.


• Build Make-a-Clip functionality enabling operators to extract, annotate, and store video segments from live and recorded feeds.


• Define and maintain A/V API contracts in collaboration with ICM and Signals platform engineers; contribute to code reviews, technical documentation, and on-call runbooks.


• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to architectural decisions across the A/V stack.

Required Qualifications

• 7–10 years of software engineering experience specializing in real-time audio and video systems in production environments.


• Deep expertise in WebRTC — including signaling protocols, ICE/STUN/TURN, DTLS-SRTP, RTP/RTCP, and media server architecture (Janus, mediasoup, or equivalent).


• Strong hands-on proficiency with GStreamer at the developer level: building and debugging complex multi-branch media pipelines, working with elements, pads, caps, and custom plugins.


• Proficiency in C/C++ (C++11/14/17) for performance-critical media and networking code; Python for tooling and automation.


• Solid experience with SIP/VoIP protocols and stacks (pjsip, Asterisk, or equivalent) and low-latency audio processing.


• Strong understanding of audio/video codecs (H.264/H.265, VP9, AAC, Opus) and streaming protocols (RTSP, RTMP, HLS, RTP).


• Experience with AWS media services (S3, Kinesis Video Streams, Polly, or equivalent) and cloud-based media pipeline architectures.


• Familiarity with hardware-accelerated video processing (NVIDIA NVENC/NVDEC, V4L2, or equivalent) is a strong plus.


• BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $155,000 – $210,000 each (DOE)


• Equity: Stock options


• Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off


• Location Requirement: Full-time, on-site at Sunnyvale HQ