Software Engineer - Backend (Product)

Ambient.ai; Redwood City (CA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

Ambient.ai, based in Redwood City, is seeking a seasoned backend engineer to develop and maintain APIs for enterprise security teams. This role requires strong Python skills and backend experience, working in a collaborative environment with other professionals to enhance security solutions.

Compensation ranges from $168K to $205K and includes equity options, reflecting the importance of skills and experience in our offers. Join us to help shape the future of physical security technology.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience, particularly on user-facing products.
• Strong Python skills with experience in Flask, Django, or FastAPI.
• Experience with database systems including SQL, NoSQL, and time-series.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship backend APIs from prototypes to production.
• Own product area with a focus on performance and operational health.
• Partner with teams to resolve ambiguous technical problems.

Skills

Backend engineering experience

Python

REST, GraphQL, or gRPC

Data modeling

Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Job description

Build a safer world with us, one incident at a time.

Ambient.ai is the category creator and leader in Agentic Physical Security. Powered by Ambient Pulsar, the first reasoning Vision-Language Model purpose-built for physical security, our platform seamlessly integrates with existing security cameras and physical access control systems to unify monitoring, access control, threat assessment, response, and investigations through an always-on reasoning layer that augments security operators with superhuman capabilities. The results: 95% fewer false alarms, investigations 20x faster, and 10x faster response.

The momentum speaks for itself: we doubled new ARR in FY26, we process 200M+ video hours per day, and have delivered results for world-class customers including Cisco, ServiceNow, SentinelOne, TikTok, Bayer, and MoMA. That kind of momentum creates an environment where great people thrive, and it shows: we recently ranked #71 out of 500 on Forbes best startup employers list.

Founded in 2017 and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and Allegion Ventures, Ambient.ai is on a fast-paced journey to fulfill our mission: prevent every security incident possible.

About the role

You’ll design and build the backend powering Ambient.ai’s product experience for enterprise security teams. The APIs and services you ship are used directly by operators at Fortune 500 companies to monitor and respond to security events across tens of thousands of cameras.

You’ll own a core product area end to end, partnering with frontend engineers, designers, and product managers to take features from concept to scaled production. Expect a mix of greenfield work on new product surfaces and depth work on systems already serving large enterprise deployments.

What you’ll do

• Design and ship backend APIs and services, from 0-to-1 prototypes through enterprise rollout.
• Own a product area end to end: data modeling, API design, performance, reliability, and operational health.
• Partner with product, design, and frontend to turn ambiguous problems into concrete technical plans.
• Tune performance and reliability under real production load, including peaks from real-time alert pipelines.
• Build the monitoring, logging, and alerting needed to catch issues before customers do.
• Contribute to architecture reviews, code reviews, and team standards.

What we’re looking for

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience, with meaningful time on user-facing web or mobile products.
• Strong Python skills and production experience with Flask, Django, or FastAPI.
• Solid API design instincts across REST, GraphQL, or gRPC, and a clear point of view on what makes an interface clean.
• Comfort modeling data across SQL, NoSQL, time-series, and vector stores, with a sense of the tradeoffs between them.
• Working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• A track record of debugging hard production issues and shipping the fix.

Nice to have

• Real-time systems experience: WebSockets, server-sent events, pub/sub, or streaming pipelines.
• Working knowledge of TypeScript and a modern frontend framework like React or Vue, enough to read frontend code and reason about end-to-end flows.
• Background in any of: video infrastructure, computer vision applications, notification and alert routing, or LLM and agentic applications.
• Experience scaling multi-tenant SaaS into large enterprise deployments.

We’ve found that in-person time meaningfully supports collaboration, creativity, and team alignment. Our talent, engineering, product, design, and marketing teams work from our Redwood City office three days a week. All other Bay Area employees join on Fridays to stay connected and close out the week together.

Ambient.ai is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Ambient does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, legally protected medical condition, family care status, military or veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal laws. Ambient is an E-Verify participant.

Compensation

$168K – $205K • Offers Equity

At Ambient.ai, we take a market-based approach to compensation. Final offers are based on job-related skills, experience, location, and internal equity.

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package, including stock options and the opportunity to share in the company’s growth.