Staff Software Engineer

alarmcom; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Alarm.com is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to serve as a technical multiplier across the SPX and Device Platform domains. This role focuses on making engineers and systems measurably better, owning complex, high-visibility initiatives end-to-end, and shaping architectural direction across domain boundaries.

The Staff SE writes code, leads designs, and drives delivery while elevating the clarity, reusability, and quality of systems beyond the immediate scope.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction for cross-cutting initiatives spanning device APIs and event pipelines.
• Lead architectural design for medium-to-large initiatives, with design docs and tradeoffs.
• Define and evolve shared platform patterns, API contracts, and event schemas.
• Anticipate medium-term architectural risks 12+ months out and mitigate.
• Contribute to department-wide technical standards and platform conventions.

Skills

Backend engineering

Platform engineering

Architectural leadership

Cross-team collaboration

Job description

About Alarm.com

Alarm.com provides the leading cloud platform for smart security and IoT, powering millions of home and business experiences. Our systems integrate devices, cloud services, APIs, and event-driven workflows into a unified ecosystem used by internal teams and external partners around the world.

About the Team

This role sits at the intersection of two strategically important areas of Alarm.com's engineering organization: Strategic Partner eXcellence (SPX) and Device Platform .

SPX establishes the partner enablement function for Alarm.com's highest-value PaaS integrations. The team architects and maintains the Core Partner Platform - shared edge services, event pipelines, authentication infrastructure, and integration patterns - that allow strategic partners to build reliably on top of Alarm.com's stack. SPX acts as the primary delivery owner for Tier 1 partnerships, drives cross-team alignment, and codifies reusable patterns that enable feature teams to self-serve future integrations.

Device Platform builds and evolves the foundational shared capabilities that underpin Alarm.com's connected device ecosystem. This spans the full arc of how devices are modeled, integrated, and managed on the platform - from the APIs and event pipelines that expose device state and commands, to the lifecycle management flows that govern how devices are provisioned and maintained, to the transport and protocol infrastructure that connects physical devices to the platform at scale. The team is on a deliberate path toward cleaner domain ownership, API-first design, and independently deployable services - a modernization effort that unlocks scalability and consistency for a growing landscape of internal teams and external partners.

These two areas are deeply connected. The partner-facing platform depends on the device platform being reliable, well-bounded, and evolvable. The device platform's modernization directly enables the scalability and consistency that strategic partners require. A Staff Engineer in this space operates across both - shaping the technical foundations that teams across the organization build on.

The team is led by an Engineering Manager and supported by a senior Architect. The Staff SE hired into this role will work in close partnership with the Architect and the broader engineering organization as a peer technical leader and force multiplier.

The Role

We are hiring a Staff Software Engineer to serve as a technical multiplier across the SPX and Device Platform domains.

At Alarm.com, the Staff SE carries a distinct mandate: to make the engineers and systems around them measurably better. This is not primarily a project execution role. The Staff SE owns technically complex, high-visibility initiatives end-to-end, shapes architectural direction across domain boundaries, builds reusable frameworks and patterns that other teams depend on, and helps the organization move faster with more consistency and less rework.

Projects spearheaded by a Staff SE carry feature-team-level scope - visible work spanning the organization, often requiring cross-team collaboration and sustained technical leadership. The Staff SE anticipates medium-term technical problems 12+ months out and works proactively to prevent them from becoming delivery or reliability issues. They are active participants in engineering leadership initiatives - tech councils, working groups, cross-team design forums - not passive consumers of information.

Success in this role requires deep technical judgment in backend and platform engineering, the ability to operate across ambiguity and cross-team dependencies, and the credibility to influence technical direction alongside architects, engineering managers, and senior engineers across the department. This is a hands-on role - the Staff SE writes code, leads designs, and drives delivery - but their highest-leverage contribution is the clarity, reusability, and quality they bring to systems and teams beyond their immediate scope.

What You'll Do

Technical Leadership & Architecture

Own the technical direction for complex, cross-cutting initiatives spanning device APIs and event pipelines, device lifecycle management, device transport and protocol infrastructure, and partner-facing platform capabilities.

Lead architectural design for medium-to-large initiatives, producing high-quality design documents that capture tradeoffs, constraints, and long-term implications - not just the chosen approach.

Define and evolve shared platform patterns, API contracts, and event schemas that are used by multiple teams across the department.

Anticipate medium-term architectural risks - 12+ months out - and work proactively to prevent them from negatively impacting the team or the platform.

Contribute to and influence department-wide technical standards, modernization guidance, and platform conventions - participating in tech councils, working groups, and cross-team design reviews as an active contri