Senior Software Engineer - Streaming

San Mateo, California, United States - Full-time

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best‑in‑class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users. From utility inspectors to first responders, soldiers in battlefield scenarios and beyond.

Skydio’s mission is to make the world a safer and more efficient place through the use of drones. Individual customers can deploy thousands of drones and docking stations. As a senior software engineer on the streaming team, you will build and operate the systems that power real‑time data and video streaming from Skydio devices to our cloud platform. These systems operate in challenging network environments and serve as foundational infrastructure used by customers and internal teams.

This includes designing, building, and operating the systems that reliably move live video, telemetry, and control data from drones.

The streaming team owns the end‑to‑end path for real‑time data and video from Skydio devices to our cloud platform. We primarily develop backend services in Go, with some Python services and occasional frontend work. We also make targeted changes on‑device when needed to improve reliability, performance, or observability. As a senior engineer, you’ll work closely with device, networking, infrastructure, and product teams to enable new real‑time features and continuously improve the streaming platform that other teams build on.

Design and build the core services that power real‑time data and video streaming from Skydio drones to the cloud.

Optimize systems for low‑bandwidth, high‑latency, and unreliable network environments, ensuring resilient and predictable behavior in the field.

Design secure, efficient, observable, scalable, and robust software for handling petabytes of real‑time data and video from fleets of Skydio drones.

Research, evaluate, and integrate libraries, protocols, and architectural approaches to continuously improve performance, reliability, and developer experience.

5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend or systems‑oriented development.

Proven ability to take a concept and systematically drive it through the full software lifecycle: architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and monitoring.

Proficiency in Go, willingness to work across languages as needed. Experience with Python and/or C++ is a plus.

Experience building and operating distributed systems in production, with attention to performance, observability, and failure modes.

Familiarity with cloud‑native technologies (AWS, Kubernetes) and networking fundamentals; experience with real‑time or streaming systems (Live Kit, Apache Pulsar, etc.) is a plus but not required.

Strong technical judgment and a high capacity to learn in a complex problem space, with comfort working across team boundaries to unblock and enable others.

At Skydio, our compensation packages for regular, full‑time employees include competitive base salaries, equity in the form of stock options, and comprehensive benefits packages. Compensation will vary based on factors, including skill level, proficiencies, transferable knowledge, and experience. Relocation assistance may also be provided for eligible roles. The annual base salary range for this position is $180,000- $240,000*. Fundamentally, we believe that equity is the key to long‑term financial growth, and we ensure all regular, full‑time employees have the opportunity to significantly benefit from the company’s success.

Regular, full‑time employees are eligible to enroll in the Company’s group health insurance plans. Regular, full‑time employees are eligible to receive the following benefits:
Paid vacation time, sick leave, holiday pay and 401K savings plan. This position and all associated benefits are subject to applicable federal, state, and local laws, as well as…