Systems Engineer

LENS; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

LENS is hiring a Systems Engineer in Los Angeles to advance real-time hazard detection and dispatch workflows for Public Safety agencies. You will join a small, mission-driven team focused on reliability and scalability across the LENS Detect stack.

Responsibilities include architecting scalable pipelines, improving runtime resilience, and enabling rapid, safe deployment of AI-powered detection with strong emphasis on system health and mission impact.

Qualifications

• Proficient in Python, C++, CUDA, JavaScript and modern languages; able to write robust, scalable systems.
• Experience with cloud platforms (GCP / AWS) and containerized environments.
• Strong debugging, root-cause analysis and system reliability mindset.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, operate, and scale LENS platform components with CTO collaboration.
• Deliver reliable, scalable, and secure software for mission-critical Public Safety use.
• Lead by example, grow the team, and ensure end-to-end system performance.

Skills

Python

C++

CUDA

JavaScript

Go

Kotlin

Swift

TypeScript

Tools

Docker

GitHub Actions

Neo Cloud APIs

Google Cloud Platform

AWS

Job description

Mission

LENS’s mission is to end traffic accidents. LENS prevents accidents and saves lives by detecting hazards to prevent accidents before they happen.

Platform & Product

LENS Detect scans CCTV feeds on highways to identify hazards, in real-time, before they become accidents. Public Safety agencies, alongside Departments of Transportation, receive alerts on the LENS Detect dashboard about Disabled Vehicles, Stalled Big Rigs, and Pedestrians on Freeway. A dispatcher reviews and validates the detection, and then dispatches an officer to the scene to assist the person in need — resulting in either preventing an accident or saving a life.

CBS LA recently did a three minute TV feature that succinctly captures what LENS is doing with Public Safety Agencies in one of the largest traffic capitals in the world:

CHP LA Communications Center using AI to prevent accidents before they happen

Role

You seek transformational change. You do not accept the status quo that accidents are an accepted inevitability, or that they just happen. Instead, you believe when the root cause of an accident can be known in advance, the accident can and should be prevented. You work with fellow Preventers that share this core belief, and together use LENS to prevent accidents and save lives.

Role & Responsibilities

As a Systems Engineer, you seek transformational change. You do not accept the status quo that accidents are an accepted inevitability, or that they just happen. Instead, you believe when the root cause of an accident can be known in advance, the accident can and should be prevented. You work with fellow Preventers that share this core belief, using LENS to prevent accidents and save lives. Your responsibilities are:

• Increase the scale and speed of preventing accidents working closely with our Co-Founder and CTO to architect, build, operate, and scale LENS. The LENS Platform consists of five layers: the Data Feed Framework, LENS Specific AI, two other layers, and the application layer at the top. The first LENS native application, LENS Detect, is a real-time streaming application used by Public Safety Agencies to detect pre-accidents and dispatch Officers to prevent accidents and save lives.
• You are part of an engineering function that is highly collaborative, operates with AI-scale leverage, and can execute with both speed and quality.
• You will deliver highly reliable, scalable, and secure software that meets the demands of mission-critical Public Safety Agencies.
• You are leading by example - building, and guiding the team to build, with the end in mind, as well enabling others to reach their highest creative frequency and impact. The team is expected to grow fast and you will grow with it.
• You work with fellow builders and Preventers who share your commitment to excellence and your conviction that technology and AI should amplify human judgment, not replace it.

Mindset, Principles, And Skills & Experience

Your mindset is grounded in:

• Systems reliability is a Preventer's work. The agencies using LENS depend on a platform that is always available, responsive and stable. We’re in the business of 24/7 first responder services.
• Systems thinking across the entire platform. You see infrastructure, data pipelines, AI layers and real-time applications interact. You anticipate dependencies, identify failure-modes, and design systems that work together seamlessly.
• Operational excellence. You approach incidents with clarity and composure. You diagnose issues methodically, communicate precisely, and restore stability without hesitation.

Principles

• We remove single points of failure and create safety nets. You design systems with redundancy - so that if one layer is tested, the next is already in place. No single misconfiguration, credential, or exposure becomes a mission-ending event.
• Begin with the end in mind. You identify the reliability, scalability, and operational posture LENS needs to achieve - real-time responsiveness, agency trust, uninterrupted availability - and work backwards to the architecture, controls, automation, and validation required to get there.
• Invest the most time where it makes the most progress. You evaluate every system's investment by the risk it reduces and the mission impact it protects, prioritizing controls that eliminate any risk of interruptions.

Skills & Experience

• Proficiency with Python, C++, CUDA, Javascript, Go, Kotlin, Swift, Typescript
• Production experience with Google Cloud Platform and/or AWS
• Comfortable working across the stack from low-level systems to cloud infrastructure
• Hands-on experience with GitHub Actions and workflow design
• Strong command of Docker
• Experience integrating with Neo Cloud APIs
• Proven ability to perform root-cause analysis across complex, multi-layered failures spanning sensors, compute units, and physical hardware
• Experience with ML model optimization and metadata schema design
• Working knowledge of transient real-time data along immutable event and time-series data
• Experience with streaming video pipelines
• Design systems with testability in mind
• Messaging frameworks such as MQTT, RTPS and ØMQ

The time to accept traffic accidents is ending, and the time to prevent them has begun. This belief is becoming more of an inevitable reality every day. The number of agencies LENS serves keeps growing - and the world needs to know why. If you want to shape the narrative of a company preventing accidents and saving lives, and use the power of communication to accelerate that mission, this role is for you.

LENS is an equal opportunity employer committed to building an inclusive workplace. We do not discriminate against any applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.