Software Engineer, Backend

Burnbot, Inc.; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

BurnBot, Inc. is seeking a senior backend engineer to own the services, APIs, and data pipelines that power our field telemetry and reporting platforms.

You will design and operate the backend stack that ingests high-rate telemetry, stores large video and sensor payloads, and delivers reliable, auditable reports for land managers. Based onsite in South San Francisco, you will collaborate with robotics and hardware teams, ensuring observability and resilience even when machines are intermittently

Qualifications

• 7+ years building and operating backend systems in production.
• Distributed systems and high-volume time-series data experience.
• Cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and infrastructure as code.
• Solid API design instincts and real database depth, including time-series or geospatial (PostGIS) work.
• Observability practice — you instrument first and guess second.

Responsibilities

• Own backend services and APIs for operator tools, fleet management, and reporting.
• Ingest high-rate telemetry and large video/sensor payloads from field machines.
• Manage cloud storage, costs, and terabyte-scale retention.
• Deliver treatment reporting and verifiable acres/coverage data.
• Ensure reliability and observability when machines are offline or intermittent.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

Time-series data

Cloud infrastructure

API design

Observability

Tools

AWS

GCP

PostGIS

Terraform

Job description

• Location 340 Shaw Rd,South San Francisco, CA, 94080,United States
• Base Pay $150,000.00 - $200,000.00 / Year
• Employee Type Exempt (FT)

Description

About BurnBot

Wildfire has stopped being a season. BurnBot builds the machines that get ahead of it — remotely operated systems that apply and contain prescribed fire, and platforms that clear heavy fuel on terrain that isn’t safe for crews.

Our fleet is at work today for PG&E, CAL FIRE, the U.S. Forest Service, Caltrans, fire districts, and tribal nations across California, Oregon, and Washington — treating land at up to 40x the pace of conventional methods. We’re roboticists, engineers, and career fire practitioners. Hardware we design in South San Francisco is in the dirt within weeks, and the people who designed it are usually standing next to it.

THE ROLE

Every machine in the field produces telemetry, video, lidar, logs, and a record of exactly what got treated — and our agency and utility customers need that record to be right, because it’s what they report on.

You’ll own the backend that carries all of it: ingest, storage, APIs, and the reporting that turns a day of machine work into something a land manager can act on.

WHAT YOU’LL OWN

Services and APIs behind our operator tools, fleet management, and customer reporting

Ingest at field scale: high-rate telemetry plus large video and sensor payloads, from machines on links that drop

Storage and infrastructure — cloud, cost, and the retention decisions that come with terabytes of field data

Treatment reporting: acres, coverage, and verification our customers can defend to their own stakeholders

Reliability and observability. When a crew is on a burn unit, our systems being down is not an inconvenience

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

7+ years building and operating backend systems in production (Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar)

Distributed systems and data pipeline experience, especially with high-volume time-series data

Cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and infrastructure as code

Solid API design instincts and real database depth, including time-series or geospatial (PostGIS) work

Observability practice — you instrument first and guess second

Pragmatism about intermittent connectivity. The machine is not always online, and the data still has to arrive

NICE TO HAVE

Robotics, IoT, or connected-fleet data at scale

Offline-first sync or store-and-forward architectures

Geospatial data and mapping services

Video or sensor-data pipelines

Reporting for government or utility customers, and the compliance that comes with it

SUMMARYHOW WE WORK

Based onsite in South San Francisco — design, build, and test all happen in one building, and being near the machines is most of the point

Flexible within that. You own your calendar: work the hours where you’re sharpest, and go remote on heads-down days.

Expect a few days a month in the field across California, Oregon, and Washington. Watching your work run on a live burn is the best part of the job.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

• Base salary: $150,000 – $200,000 — final offers reflect experience and demonstrated scope.

Burnbot is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including but not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with one or more disabilities, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [phone] x 1010 or [e-mail].