Team Lead, Ecosystems

Ambient; Redwood City (CA); Hybrid; USD 185,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Comprehensive health + welfare package

Flexible time off

Tech swag

Team events

Job summary

Ambient.ai in Redwood City is seeking a player-coach Engineering Manager to lead the Ecosystems team, building PACS integrations and advancing new access control capabilities. You’ll own both the team and partner relationships, align with product, and ensure reliability of critical security integrations.

You’ll stay hands-on, review designs, and shape architecture while mentoring engineers. The role reports to EPD leadership and offers a hybrid Bay Area schedule, stock options, and a

Qualifications

• 6+ years in software engineering, incl. 2+ years in a tech lead role with people responsibilities.
• Experience shipping and operating integrations with third-party systems.
• Own technical relationships with external partners and negotiate joint work.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a backend/integration team and set high ownership bar for production systems.
• Balance integration delivery with new product development and rebalance as priorities shift.
• Stay hands-on: review designs, unblock hard debugging, and write code where it moves the team fastest.
• Define the PACS integration roadmap with product and keep existing integrations reliable.
• Run partner relationships: be the engineering contact for PACS and hardware partners, negotiate access and escalations.

Skills

Access control systems

Team leadership

Backend & distributed systems

External partner management

Communication

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, 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.

The role

You’ll lead the Ecosystems team: the engineers who connect Ambient.ai to the Physical Access Control Systems (PACS) our customers run, and who are extending into new access control capabilities. You’ll own both the team and the partner relationships behind it.

The team’s work ranges from building and maintaining PACS integrations that customers depend on every day to developing new access control products from an early, ambiguous starting point. You’ll set direction and priorities across all of it.

Every alarm Ambient Access Intelligence verifies depends on this team’s integrations, so reliability is part of the job, alongside building what comes next.

This is a player‑coach role. You’ll manage and grow a small team, stay close enough to the code to make sound architecture calls, and represent Ambient.ai credibly with partner engineering and product leaders. You’ll report into EPD leadership.

What you'll do

Lead the team

• Hire, manage, and grow a team of backend and integration engineers, and set a high bar for ownership of production systems.
• Split the team’s capacity between integration delivery and new product development, and rebalance as priorities shift.
• Stay hands‑on: review designs, unblock hard debugging, and write code where it moves the team fastest.

Own delivery across both workstreams

• Own the PACS integration roadmap with product: which partners to add, which capabilities to deepen, and what it takes to keep existing integrations reliable.
• Set up the operating model for integrations in production: monitoring, on‑call, partner escalation paths, and regression testing against partner releases.
• Define the architecture and milestones for new access control capabilities, from device communication and credential management to the cloud services and APIs behind them.

Run partner relationships

• Be the primary engineering contact for PACS and hardware partners, from technical scoping through joint roadmap planning.
• Negotiate API access, SDK support, test hardware, and escalation commitments, and hold partners to them.
• Represent Ambient.ai in partner technical reviews and joint customer escalations, and bring what you learn back into our product strategy.

What we’re looking for

• Deep experience with access control systems, from the software side (a PACS vendor, a cloud access control company, or an integrator’s engineering team) or the hardware side (locks, readers, controllers, credentials).
• 6+ years in software engineering, including 2+ years managing engineers or leading a team as a tech lead with people responsibilities.
• A track record of shipping and operating integrations with third‑party systems, and of building something new from an early, ambiguous starting point.
• Experience owning technical relationships with external partners: you’ve scoped joint work, negotiated access and support, and resolved escalations without losing the relationship.
• Strong backend and distributed systems judgment, including systems that span customer‑site hardware and the cloud.
• Clear communication with engineers, product leaders, partner executives, and customers alike.

Nice to have

• Direct experience with PACS, lock, or credential platforms such as LenelS2, C‑CURE 9000, Genetec, Brivo, or similar.
• Built or led a cloud‑managed access control product end‑to‑end, including controllers, credentials, and mobile access.
• Working knowledge of access control protocols and standards: OSDP, Wiegand, BLE and NFC mobile credentials.
• IoT platform experience: device provisioning, fleet management, firmware updates, MQTT.
• Familiarity with enterprise security buyers and the compliance expectations that come with them (SOC 2, audit trails, role‑based access)

Why join us:

• We are creating an entirely new category within a 180+ billion‑dollar physical security industry and looking for team members who are also passionate about our mission to prevent every security incident possible
• We partner with an incredible customer roster of F500 companies, including Adobe, TikTok, Gap and SentinelOne
• Regular Full‑time employees receive stock options for the opportunity to share ownership in the success of our company
• Comprehensive health + welfare package (Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, EAP, Legal Services, 401k plan)
• We offer flexible time off to rest and recharge, including Winter Break (time off between Christmas and New Year’s for most roles, depending on customer demand)
• The latest tech and awesome swag will be delivered to your door
• Enjoy a full range of opportunities to connect with your awesome co‑workers
• We love to hike, are foodies, and love music! Check out our most recent Ambient Spotify Playlist

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.

#LI‑Hybrid

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.