Senior Edge Platform Engineer

Orange Barrel Media; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Orange Barrel Media seeks a senior engineer to lead the edge platform behind our kiosk fleet. You will harden the Linux/Python stack, secure it, and grow it while mentoring one engineer. This is a blended role with hands-on coding and leadership responsibilities.

You will manage one direct report, conduct 1:1s, set goals, and help with career growth. You will work on edge runtime services, Wayland kiosk stacks, and fleet observability, with a focus on reliability and incremental hardening.

Qualifications

• Experience with Python in systems, async programming, and event loops.
• Hands-on with Ubuntu LTS and Snap packaging.
• Experience deploying with AWS IoT Core in production.
• Familiarity with OpenTelemetry instrumentation.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain edge runtime Python services on Ubuntu.
• Lead display stack and Wayland kiosk sessions on real hardware.
• Manage fleet operations, config rollouts, and observability.
• Deep AWS IoT integration including devices, shadows, and rules.
• Coordinate multiple workstreams and mentor one direct report.
• Lead code reviews for edge and IoT software.

Skills

Python (systems)

Snap packaging

Wayland kiosks

AWS IoT Core

Configuration management

OpenTelemetry

Linux edge devices

Job description

About The Role

We're hiring a senior engineer to lead the edge platform behind our kiosk fleet, the Linux/Python stack that runs on every device in the field, the cloud IoT services it talks to, and the tooling that keeps it healthy. The platform is built and in production. Your job is to harden it, secure it, and grow it, not to rewrite it.

This is a player-coach role. You'll spend most of your time writing and reviewing code, but you'll also directly manage one engineer, including 1:1s, goals, feedback, and career growth. If you want to be a pure IC or a pure manager, this isn't the right fit. If you've been doing both and want the title to match, keep reading.

Responsibilities

• The edge runtime: Python services on Ubuntu, packaged as snaps, talking to AWS IoT Core over MQTT, with async, systemd, and event-loop work
• The display stack: Wayland-based kiosk sessions on real hardware in the wild
• Fleet operations, including configuration management rollouts, OpenTelemetry instrumentation, and the observability work that lets us catch issues before sites do
• AWS IoT integration in depth, including devices, shadows, jobs, message routing, auth, and serverless triggers
• Multiple in-flight workstreams alongside steady reliability work, including packaging modernization and a fleet data-model refactor
• One direct report, including their growth, feedback loop, and career development
• Code review leadership, setting the bar for edge and IoT code from day one

Qualifications

Strong, recent experience across most of the following:

• Python at the systems level (async, systemd, MQTT, event loops)
• Snap packaging and modern Ubuntu LTS
• Wayland-based kiosk display stacks
• AWS IoT Core in production, not just familiarity with it
• A modern configuration management tool for fleet rollouts
• OpenTelemetry instrumentation
• Linux edge and device fundamentals, with a real understanding of what is happening on the box

[Add specific years-of-experience expectation, e.g. "8+ years in backend or platform engineering, with meaningful edge or IoT exposure."]

Preferred Qualifications (Not Required)

• Cellular edge routers and their SDKs
• IP camera / NVR integration (RTSP, ONVIF)
• Prometheus-family observability tooling
• Exposure to adjacent stack: Rails (light read-and-extend work on a couple of internal apps), Electron (adapter-level maintenance only), serverless functions, internal package distribution

What This Role Is Not

• Not a greenfield rebuild. We are hardening a working platform, not rewriting it
• Not cloud infrastructure-as-code work, which is owned elsewhere
• Not web or frontend product work
• Not deep distro-level packaging or notebook/data tooling
• Not pure management with no coding. This role is blended, and you will ship

How We Work

We bias toward incremental hardening, observability, and bug elimination over net-new abstractions. We prefer fewer, better-instrumented systems to more clever ones. We are happy operating in a niche, and we expect the manager of that niche to genuinely care about the engineer reporting to them, not just the roadmap.

Company Overview

Orange Barrel Media (OBM) creates and operates iconic urban media displays that advertisers ask for by name in top U.S. markets. Since our founding in 2004, OBM has pioneered a community-oriented model of outdoor media development and is nationally recognized by cities and real estate owners alike seeking to implement premier media programs that add to the character of urban places. In the advertising community, OBM is widely recognized as the owner of the highest impact and most memorable advertising locations in the cities where it operates.

The OBM team is also a leader in smart city infrastructure, launching the Interactive Kiosk Experience (IKE) platform in concert with cities across the U.S. through the company IKE Smart City. IKE is a best-in-class public engagement platform that helps cities communicate with the public, enliven the pedestrian experience, and tell the story of their city. The core pillars of the IKE platform are public benefit and social equity, values that we seek to maximize in every IKE market to achieve city objectives and exceed community expectations.

We are a place where people are inspired to achieve success, genuinely like each other, and have endless opportunities to grow.

Learn more at www.obm.com and www.ikesmartcity.com.