Senior Staff Software Engineer

vsco39; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 260,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Discretionary bonuses

Flexible time off

401K retirement plan

Job summary

VSCO is hiring a Senior Staff Engineer to own Reflex, its production GPU image-processing engine, and the path into Studio Pro on iOS and macOS. This technically senior role deepens an existing stack, enabling RAW development, large-image export, and color/logical parity, while maintaining performance and memory budgets.

You will mentor engineers toward Staff-level ownership, improve native tooling, CI, and AI-assisted workflows, and partner with product to shape technical direction and customer

Qualifications

• 10+ years in engineering, owning a production rendering or GPU-imaging system.
• Deep GPU/rendering experience: pipelines, shaders, color, memory.
• Strong systems language experience; Rust preferred; read/write WGSL/Metal shaders.
• Experience taking imaging/graphics work to mobile; iOS/Metal preferred.
• Experience mentoring Senior engineers toward Staff-level leadership.
• AI-assisted developer workflows implemented in a team.

Responsibilities

• Own the Reflex imaging engine: DAG execution, WGSL operators, GPU budgets, color management.
• Ship engine changes through the native bridge into Studio Pro on iOS/macOS with versioning.
• Take imaging capabilities from design to production (RAW, large exports, parity with stack).
• Diagnose and fix production graphics problems: OOM, cache eviction, encode paths.
• Define render/pipeline contracts to keep mobile and desktop coherent.
• Mentor engineers toward Staff-level ownership and improve code review quality.
• Lead force-multiplication: packaging, CI, review workflows, AI-assisted tooling.
• Collaborate with Product/Design/Engineering to align tech direction with business goals.

Skills

10+ years engineering

GPU rendering

Shader programming

Mentoring others

Tools

WGSL

Metal

Rust

UniFFI

JNI

Nitro

Job description

About VSCO

For years, we've helped photographers create their work. Now we're building what comes next. VSCO exists for photographers. Not as a side feature, not as an afterthought, but as the whole point. We build the connected system photographers rely on, and we've spent over a decade earning the trust of a global creative community that takes the craft seriously. Photography is at an inflection point. AI is reshaping what's possible for creative work, and that's where our mission shines. VSCO is building the full photographer's workflow: from creating and editing your work, to delivering it to clients, to running your business. All of it built thoughtfully, with photographers leading the way. We believe the future of photography tools creates more space for creativity, handling the busy work so photographers can focus on the craft. If you care about craft, community, and what technology can unlock for creative people, this is the work. We're a mission-driven and focused company where your work ships quickly, is meaningful, and reaches tens of millions of people worldwide. You'll have a real say in what we build and how we build it. We hire people who don't wait to be asked, naturally connect the dots, care about the quality of what they ship, and believe the best outcomes come from building together.

About The Role

VSCO is hiring a Senior Staff Engineer to own Reflex, our production GPU image-processing engine, and the path it takes into Studio Pro on iOS and macOS.

This is a critical technical leader. You will deepen a stack that is already in customers' hands: new capabilities (RAW, large-image export, desktop), production quality (color correctness, memory, performance), and the contracts that let product engineers ship on top of the engine without becoming graphics programmers. You will also lead company-wide engineering mentorship and force-multiplication - tools, workflows, and AI-assisted development that make the rest of the team more effective.

In This Role, You Will

• Own the Reflex imaging engine: DAG execution, WGSL operators, GPU resource/memory budgets, and color management (linear working space, LUTs, Display P3, bit-depth)
• Ship engine changes through the native bridge (UniFFI + Nitro) into Studio Pro on iOS and macOS, including versioning and release
• Take new imaging capabilities from design to production (current examples: RAW develop, tiled/gigapixel export, further parity with the existing VSCO imaging stack)
• Diagnose and fix production-class mobile graphics problems: OOM, cache eviction, HEIC encode, editor vs. batch vs. export paths
• Define and keep the render/pipeline contracts in the shared Studio Pro core so mobile and desktop stay coherent
• Mentor Senior engineers toward Staff-level ownership; raise the quality of design and code review across the org
• Lead force-multiplication: better native packaging and CI, shared review/agent workflows, and AI tools that shorten idea-o-production
• Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering to turn product and business goals into technical direction; make pragmatic tradeoffs between long-term architecture and getting value into customers' hands.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in engineering, with a track record as the owner of a production rendering, imaging, or GPU-compute system
• Deep GPU/rendering experience: pipelines, shaders, color, and memory - not just "used a graphics API"
• Strong systems language experience; Rust is strongly preferred. Comfortable reading and writing shaders (WGSL, Metal, or equivalent)
• Experience taking imaging or graphics work onto mobile (memory budgets, decode/encode, thermal/GPU limits). iOS/Metal preferred
• Experience working 0-1 inside an existing product: evaluate nascent ideas, pick high-leverage work, sequence small investments into sizable change
• Experience mentoring other Senior engineers to grow into Staff-level leaders
• AI-assisted developer workflows (parallel agents, MCP, eval/review automation) that you have actually landed in a team, not just demoed

Nice to have

• wgpu, WebGPU, or WASM
• Native bridges (UniFFI, JNI, Nitro, or similar) and React Native
• Photographic imaging: RAW, color management, LUTs, film emulation
• On-device or cloud ML in a creative-tools context (segmentation, style transfer)

Compensation

The base salary for this position will vary based on several factors, such as relevant experience, location and your approved internal leveling assessed during the interview process. The base salary range for this role is $260,000 - $290,000. Salary is one component of our total compensation package. This position also qualifies for equity (i.e. stock options) and is eligible for discretionary bonuses based on performance.

The benefits available for this position include flexible time off, a 401K retirement plan, insurance (medical, dental, vision, life/AD&D, short and long term disability), and 11 paid holidays. We also provide paid sick time as required by state and local law.