Staff Frontend Engineer - Mapping & Spatial Platform

Verkada Inc.; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Job summary

Verkada in San Mateo, CA is seeking a founding Staff Engineer to lead the architectural design of our spatial platform. You will build a high-performance 3D engine and reusable components that power eight+ product lines, enabling interactive geospatial visualization and real-time collaboration.

This greenfield role challenges you to own core infrastructure, push for pixel-perfect UX, low-latency rendering, and sophisticated spatial analytics while shaping a scalable off-line capable sync system.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building complex, customer-facing web apps or high-performance graphics engines.
• CS degree or related field with strong data structures knowledge.
• Eye for detail with pixel-perfect execution and high visual polish.
• Product grit; ability to bridge CAD-level precision with consumer UX.
• Mathematical precision: coordinate systems and geospatial projections.

Responsibilities

• Build Rendering Platform: high-performance rendering architecture for interactive geospatial visualization and real-time vertex manipulation surface.
• Set the UX Bar with Design for spatial editing, pixel-level polish, and smooth interactions.
• Optimize for Latency with partial GPU buffer updates and custom shaders for sub-millisecond latency.
• Spatial Intelligence: real-time 3D line-of-sight, heatmaps, and AI-driven hardware placement suggestions.
• Build the Sync Engine: client-side CRDT architecture powering offline-first, multi-user editing.

Skills

Web applications

Graphics engines

CS fundamentals

Detail-oriented

Geospatial math

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Deck.gl

MapLibre

Three.js

WebGL/WebGPU

Job description

San Mateo, CA United States

Who We Are

Verkada is transforming how organizations protect their people and places with an integrated, privacy-sensitive AI-powered platform that includes solutions for video security, access control, air quality sensors, alarms, intercoms, and visitor management.

We’ve got serious momentum in the market: more than 30,000 customers (including 100+ of the Fortune 500), a $5.8B valuation , more than $1 billion in annualized bookings, and backing from CapitalG, Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Felicis Ventures, Next47 and more. Physical AI is one of the most consequential technology shifts of our time, and Verkada is at the center of it.

You can look at all kinds of communities to see our platform’s impact in the world. It's the retailer that uses our agentic AI to deter theft before it happens. The warehouse that uses AI-powered alerts to make sure its team is protected on the floor with proper PPE. The school that’s alerted to a threat in real-time and triggers a lockdown in seconds, not minutes. We’re rapidly scaling this impact: today, more than 2 million Verkada devices are deployed across 170+ countries.

About the Role

We are looking for a founding Staff Engineer to lead the technical architecture of our next-generation Spatial Platform. For the past decade, floor plans have been static images; we are rebuilding that foundation from the ground up as a high-performance, interactive, and collaborative 3D engine.

This is a greenfield role for a builder who wants to own a core pillar of Verkada’s infrastructure before we hit the public markets. You won't just build features—you will architect a platform that supports 8+ product lines, solving the "hard math" of geospatial projections and the "hard graphics" of rendering thousands of interactive assets at a buttery-smooth 60 FPS.

What You'll Do

• Build the Rendering Platform: Design a high-performance rendering architecture that supports both an interactive viewer for high-density geospatial visualization and a precision editing surface for real-time vertex manipulation.
• Set the UX Bar: Partner with Design to define the interaction model for spatial editing — easing curves, snapping behavior, cursor states, loading transitions — and hold the line on pixel-level polish across the platform.
• Optimize for Latency: Solve the "500-element wall" with partial GPU buffer updates and custom shaders, ensuring sub-millisecond input latency during real-time vertex manipulation.
• Spatial Intelligence: Develop power-user tools like real-time 3D line-of-sight analysis, signal strength heatmaps, and AI-driven hardware placement suggestions.
• Build the Sync Engine: Own the client-side CRDT architecture (Yjs/Automerge-class) powering offline-first, multi-user editing — document model, local persistence, presence, and conflict resolution.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of experience building complex, customer-facing web applications or high-performance graphics engines.
• CS Fundamentals: A degree in Computer Science or a related field, with strong intuition for data structures, memory management, and linear algebra.
• Eye for Detail: Pixel-perfect execution — you notice the half-pixel misalignment, the 16ms jank, the easing curve that feels "off." You hold a high bar for visual polish and won't ship until interactions feel right.
• Product Grit: Ability to bridge the gap between CAD-level precision and consumer-grade UX, partnering closely with Design to turn rough specs into delightful, production-grade experiences.
• Mathematical Precision: Understanding of coordinate system conversions, geospatial projections, and 3D geometry.

Nice to Haves

• Graphics Stack: Experience with Deck.gl, MapLibre, Three.js, or raw WebGL/WebGPU.
• Collaborative Systems: Experience with real-time sync architectures (e.g., Yjs, Automerge, or Operational Transforms).
• Low-Level Web: Proficiency in high-performance 2D/3D graphics (Canvas API, low-level buffer management, or custom shaders).
• Geospatial Mastery: Familiarity with PostGIS, vector tiling (MVT), and GIS workflows.

US Employee Benefits

Verkada is committed to fostering a workplace environment that prioritizes the holistic health and wellbeing of our employees and their families by offering comprehensive wellness perks, benefits, and resources. Our benefits and perks programs include, but are not limited to: