Staff Backend Engineer, Video and Streaming

About Knightscope 

Knightscope (NASDAQ: KSCP) is a security technology company building the nation's first Autonomous Security Force: autonomous machines, AI-driven software, and elite security professionals operating as one integrated managed service. The Company is on a mission to make the United States of America the safest country in the world. One Team. One Force. 

Job Summary 

You will own the video and streaming backend that powers Signals, taking it from a third-party vendor into internal ownership. This is the highest-traffic backend in the Signals platform, and the technical decisions you make here will shape Signals for years. 

Location: ONSITE - Sunnyvale, CA

About the Role 

You will own the video and streaming backend that powers Signals, taking it from a third-party vendor into internal ownership. This is the highest-traffic backend in the Signals platform, and the technical decisions you make here will shape Signals for years. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Own the video and streaming backend for Signals end to end. 

• Lead vendor knowledge transfer on video pipeline architecture and operations. 

• Partner with the Video UI frontend team on end-to-end streaming experience. 

• Partner with the ML/CV team on model serving for ICM 2.0. 

• Establish SLOs, on-call rotation, and cost optimization for the video pipeline. 

Required Qualifications 

• 10+ years in backend engineering, including staff-level architectural ownership. 

• Deep experience with video streaming systems (WebRTC, HLS, RTMP, or similar). 

• High-throughput real-time systems at scale. 

• Strong distributed systems fundamentals. 

• Production ownership of media pipelines. 

Nice to Have 

• Security or surveillance video pipeline experience. 

• Edge-to-cloud video ingest and processing architectures. 

• Prior insourcing of a media backend from a third party. 

Compensation and Benefits 

Base Salary: $210,000 to $250,000 (DOE) 

Equity: Stock options 

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

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