---
title: 'Software Engineer - Backend (Product) at Ambient.ai'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-backend-product-ambient-ai-redwood-city-t6mxbc3vjg5k'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-24'
---

# Software Engineer - Backend (Product) at Ambient.ai

- **Company:** Ambient.ai
- **Location:** Redwood City, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-05-22
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-24
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ambient.ai/16078dde-74dc-4fd9-a16f-d6d96b87eb4f

## 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 the [Forbes best startup employers list](https://www.forbes.com/lists/americas-best-startup-employers/). 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. Ready to learn more? Connect with us on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ambient-ai/?viewAsMember=true) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ambient-ai-inc)

## About the role

You'll design and build the backend powering [Ambient.ai](http://Ambient.ai)'s product experience for enterprise security teams. The APIs and services you ship are used directly by operators at Fortune 500 companies to monitor and respond to security events across tens of thousands of cameras. You'll own a core product area end to end, partnering with frontend engineers, designers, and product managers to take features from concept to scaled production. Expect a mix of greenfield work on new product surfaces and depth work on systems already serving large enterprise deployments.

## What you'll do

- Design and ship backend APIs and services, from 0-to-1 prototypes through enterprise rollout.
- Own a product area end to end: data modeling, API design, performance, reliability, and operational health.
- Partner with product, design, and frontend to turn ambiguous problems into concrete technical plans.
- Tune performance and reliability under real production load, including peaks from real-time alert pipelines.
- Build the monitoring, logging, and alerting needed to catch issues before customers do.
- Contribute to architecture reviews, code reviews, and team standards.

## What we're looking for

- 6+ years of backend engineering experience, with meaningful time on user-facing web or mobile products.
- Strong Python skills and production experience with Flask, Django, or FastAPI.
- Solid API design instincts across REST, GraphQL, or gRPC, and a clear point of view on what makes an interface clean.
- Comfort modeling data across SQL, NoSQL, time-series, and vector stores, with a sense of the tradeoffs between them.
- Working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
- A track record of debugging hard production issues and shipping the fix.

## Nice to have

- Real-time systems experience: WebSockets, server-sent events, pub/sub, or streaming pipelines.
- Working knowledge of TypeScript and a modern frontend framework like React or Vue, enough to read frontend code and reason about end-to-end flows.
- Background in any of: video infrastructure, computer vision applications, notification and alert routing, or LLM and agentic applications.
- Experience scaling multi-tenant SaaS into large enterprise deployments.

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](https://www.alltrails.com/us/california/redwood-city), are foodies, and love music! Check out our most recent[Ambient Spotify Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2kx8dM5h65Tac5UOo0kuWr?si=cebFZmkHQhKEvnoall2rcQ)

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. Ready to learn more? Connect with us on[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ambient-ai/?viewAsMember=true)|[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ambient2599) #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.

## About Ambient.ai

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Ambient.ai provides an AI-powered agentic physical security platform that transforms existing camera and access control infrastructure into a unified intelligence layer to prevent security incidents in real time.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Redwood City, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Shikhar Shrestha (CEO) and Vikesh Khanna (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-powered enterprise physical security (category creator of “Agentic Physical Security”)
- **Target customers**: Large enterprises with 1,000–100,000+ employees, including Fortune 500 companies, top U.S. technology firms, healthcare systems, educational institutions, data centers, and critical infrastructure operators. B2B, security teams (CSOs, CISOs, SOC managers).
- **Mission**: Prevent every security incident possible.

## Products & Services
- **Ambient Foundation (Base Platform)**: Always‑on situational awareness layer that unifies cameras, access systems, and sensors. Features Agentic Video Walls, Semantic Search (natural‑language video querying), multi‑site management, and PACS Visual Previews.
- **Ambient Advanced Forensics**: Compresses investigations from hours/days to seconds. Includes Similarity Search, License Plate Recognition, and Incident Timeline creation – up to 20× faster investigation speed.
- **Ambient Access Intelligence**: Agentic solution for access control monitoring. Links access control alarms with visual context to auto‑validate events, eliminating 90–95% of false alarms (DFO/DHO events) and saving up to $500K annually.
- **Ambient Threat Detection**: Real‑time threat analysis with 150+ validated threat signatures (perimeter breaches, tailgating, assault, brandished firearms, loitering, etc.). Contextual Threat Analysis Engine interprets intent; 90% of alerts resolved in under one minute.
- **Ambient Pulsar (Vision‑Language Model)**: The industry’s first always‑on, edge‑optimized reasoning VLM purpose‑built for physical security. Trained on 1M+ hours of ethically sourced enterprise video, NVIDIA‑accelerated, continuously learning.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with strategic investment from Allegion Ventures (largest check Allegion has written). Also backed by Y Combinator, SV Angel, and individual investors including Jyoti Bansal (AppDynamics), George Kurtz (CrowdStrike), Frederic Kerrest (Okta), and Mark Leslie (Veritas).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: a16z (led Series A & B), Allegion Ventures, Y Combinator, SV Angel.
- **Growth Signals**: 4×+ top‑line and customer growth since emerging from stealth in 2022. Used by most of the top 10 U.S. technology companies and multiple Fortune 500 organizations. Recognized as a Forbes Cloud 100 Rising Star, YC Top Company, and SIW Reader’s Choice Awards winner.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Category creator** of Agentic Physical Security – distinct from legacy video analytics or AI‑powered cameras.
- **Hybrid edge+cloud architecture**: processes video on‑premise (raw video never leaves customer environment) while providing centralized cloud SOC console; works with 200+ ONVIF‑compliant IP camera brands and integrates with major VMS/PACS providers (Genetec, Milestone, LenelS2, Honeywell Pro‑Watch).
- **Privacy‑by‑design**: no facial recognition, no PII stored, SOC 2 Type II certified, GDPR/CCPA‑aligned.
- **Purpose‑built VLM (Ambient Pulsar)** enables real‑time temporal reasoning and open‑set threat understanding at machine speed.
- **Proven outcomes**: 90–95% false alarm reduction, 20× faster investigations, up to $500K annual labor savings.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale enterprise adoption**: expanding beyond top tech companies into healthcare, education, financial services, energy, manufacturing, defense, and government.
- **Deepen AI capabilities**: continuous improvement of Ambient Pulsar and expansion of threat signature library.
- **Agentic autonomy**: moving toward more autonomous response (escalation, dispatch, talkdown) while keeping humans in the loop.

## Why Work Here
Culture and benefits information sourced from [ambient.ai/careers](https://www.ambient.ai/careers):
- **Mission‑driven**: “If improving lives through technology is what gets you up in the morning” – team directly prevents school shootings, robberies, and asset theft.
- **Perks & benefits**: 95% medical premium coverage, 75% dental & vision, 401K (pre‑tax/Roth via Guideline), Flexible PTO, early stock option exercise via Employee Incentive Plan.
- **Culture**: Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), team outings (hiking, good food, celebrating with music), “We’re serious about our jobs—but we’re people too.”
- **Engineering culture**: Built on frontier AI (vision‑language models, edge computing); founders are Stanford AI researchers. Small but growing team (~140+ employees). Emphasis on innovation, autonomy, and real‑world impact.
- **Work model**: Not explicitly stated as remote/hybrid/office; careers page lists open roles globally. Redwood City HQ likely onsite or hybrid.

## Sources
1. [ambient.ai - Homepage](https://www.ambient.ai/)
2. [ambient.ai - Careers](https://www.ambient.ai/careers)
3. [ambient.ai - About](https://www.ambient.ai/about)
4. [ambient.ai - AI Info (structured data)](https://www.ambient.ai/ai-info)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com - Ambient.ai Job Board](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ambient.ai)

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