Lead Software Engineer (Data Platform)

Viam; New York (NY); On-site; USD 220,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% covered medical/dental/vision insurance plans

25 days paid vacation

Free lunch in office

Monthly wellness stipend

Job summary

Viam is seeking a Lead Engineer in New York City who will be responsible for the technical direction of the Data/ML function. You will manage and lead a team of engineers in a hands-on role that involves making architectural decisions and coding.

The position is hybrid, with 3+ days in the office. Responsibilities include architecture design, team development, and driving ML infrastructure performance. The salary is between $220,000 - $250,000 annually, plus benefits like health insurance and paid vacation.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a team of engineers.
• Background in building and scaling backend infrastructure.
• Experience shipping APIs and UIs.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of 5+ engineers.
• Own the architecture of the data pipeline end to end.
• Drive reliability and performance of ML infrastructure.

Skills

Leadership in engineering

Backend infrastructure development

API and UI shipping

Decision making under constraints

Cross-team project management

Data-intensive systems experience

Tools

Go

Python

TensorFlow

MongoDB Atlas

Job description

Founded by Eliot Horowitz, co‑founder and former CTO of MongoDB, Viam is a novel robotics engineering platform that lets you configure, control, and manage robots intuitively and quickly. We’re inspiring a generation of engineers to solve complicated automation problems with our uniquely powerful suite of software tools.

We’re a ~100‑person company headquartered in New York City.

Engineering Challenge

Building software for machines introduces challenges that traditional software systems rarely face. Devices operate in real‑world environments, networks are unreliable, and software must interact with hardware, sensors, and real‑time data. At Viam, engineers build the platform and tools that make those machines programmable, observable, and manageable at scale.

About the Role

New York City (Hybrid 3+ days per week in office)

We are looking for a Lead Engineer to own the technical direction and delivery of our Data/ML function. This is a hands‑on leadership role where you will manage a team, make architectural decisions, and code.

The Data/ML team owns the infrastructure that moves data from devices to the cloud and makes it usable across the Viam platform. Performance, reliability, usability, and correctness affect every solution built on Viam. On top of that foundation, the team also owns the ML infrastructure that turns that data into models: training workflows, labeling pipelines, and inference in both cloud and at the edge. Some of the interesting challenges they solve: handling an unusually wide variety of data types from devices that are frequently offline, building auto‑labeling and training workflows at scale, and expanding cloud inference across multiple model backends.

Tech stack is Go and Python with a Svelte frontend, running ML workloads on GKE using TensorFlow, TFLite, and ONNX, with MongoDB Atlas, GCP, and Azure for the data layer. You will report to the VP of Engineering.

What You’ll Own

• Lead and develop a team of 5+ engineers: set direction, run planning, ship reliably, and grow the team through coaching, feedback, and performance conversations
• Write code and ship features alongside your team across the full stack, from backend infrastructure through UI
• Own the architecture of the data pipeline end to end, from device to cloud, including storage, querying, and the APIs that power the rest of the platform
• Drive the reliability and performance of ML training and inference infrastructure, from custom training workflows to the services that power auto‑labeling and model evaluation
• Have opinions on what gets built and how users experience it, and bring those into product decisions early
• Own cross‑team problems through to resolution, working closely with Computer Vision, Fleet Management, Mobile, and Solutions Engineering

What You Bring

• You have led engineers and know how to develop them, not just manage them
• You have a background building and scaling backend or platform infrastructure in production
• You have shipped APIs and UIs and think about both as part of the same product problem
• You have sound judgment on system design and tradeoffs under real constraints
• You have product instincts and use them: when something is being built the wrong way, you say so early
• You make decisions with incomplete information and have a bias toward shipping over planning
• You have a track record of driving cross‑team projects from ambiguity to production
• Experience with data‑intensive systems, streaming pipelines, or ML infrastructure

Experience with robotics or IoT is not required.

How We Work

• This space has brand new challenges and we all have an appetite to learn
• We know that the best teams help each other succeed through feedback

Benefits

The salary for this role is between $220,000 - $250,000 /year. Your exact offer will vary based on factors, including experience level, skillset, market location, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. In addition to cash compensation, Viam offers a comprehensive Total Rewards package that includes equity grants, health benefits, and more.

• 100% covered medical/dental/vision insurance plans, commuter benefits
• 25 days paid vacation and generous holiday observances
• Free lunch every day that you’re in the office
• One Medical Membership
• Citi Bike memberships
• Monthly wellness stipend to be used for a variety of fitness‑related items like gym memberships, fitness classes, fitness equipment, and more
• Paid parental leave
• Reproductive Health Benefits, including Fertility Benefits and Abortion Access Travel Benefits
• Yearly Learning and Development Budget for your own personal learning goals

Values

• Vision Driven
• Collaborate Openly
• Act Decisively
• Succeed Through Diversity
• Hold Ourselves Accountable
• Lead with Curiosity

As set forth in Viam’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.