---
title: 'Software Engineer, Infrastructure at Niantic Spatial'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-infrastructure-niantic-spatial-san-francisco-m57tjhm211kn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Software Engineer, Infrastructure at Niantic Spatial

- **Company:** Niantic Spatial
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $163k–$230k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-30
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/niantic-spatial/038011fd-5fe3-4b7f-863c-919b2af28597

## Job description

## About Niantic Spatial

AI has learned from almost everything online, but it still struggles with the physical world, where 99.5% of economic activity happens. It doesn’t know where things are, how spaces fit together, or what changes over time. That’s one of the biggest unsolved problems in AI, and it’s the one we’re solving at Niantic Spatial. We build spatial AI models and services so people and machines can reason, learn and act safely in the physical world. We turn camera imagery, video, sensor data and archives into accurate, AI-readable representations of real places that robots can train in and machines can use to know exactly where they are. In physical AI, mistakes have real consequences. That’s why we build AI grounded in measured reality, not guesswork, so the people and machines relying on it can trust it to get things right. Our team built some of the world’s most widely used maps. Now we’re building something bigger: a living, measured record of the real world that machines can query, learn from and use to understand how places change over time. If you want to help AI understand the world we actually live in, come build with us.

## About the Role

You’ll join a small infrastructure team with broad, shared ownership — the engineers who keep Niantic Spatial running. The team covers the cloud platform, the developer tooling every engineer depends on, and the edge services our customers’ requests pass through. You’ll work across SRE, infrastructure, and developer platform alongside teammates who know the stack well, and you’ll grow into owning parts of it yourself. Because every engineer here builds on what this team provides, your work will also shape how the whole engineering org builds, ships, and operates.

## What You'll Do

- Cloud and SRE: Build and maintain cloud infrastructure as code, and help improve reliability through monitoring, alerting, and service-level objectives.
- Developer Platform: Help run our source control, CI/CD pipelines, and build infrastructure so engineers can ship quickly and safely.
- Production Operations: Share on-call, take part in incident response and follow-up, and automate away repetitive operational work.
- Edge and Delivery: Help run the edge API gateway, CDN, and authentication and authorization systems with the rest of the team.
- Compute and GPU Management: Help provision and monitor compute and GPU capacity across teams.
- AI-Assisted Operations: Use AI tools to help build, automate, and maintain our infrastructure, and help shape how the team uses them.

## What You'll Bring

- Years of Experience: 3+ years in infrastructure, SRE, DevOps, or platform engineering.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Infrastructure as Code: Experience managing infrastructure as code with tools such as Terraform, Pulumi, or similar.
- Cloud: Hands-on experience with GCP, AWS, or another major cloud provider in production.
- CI/CD: Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines in GitLab, GitHub Actions, or similar.
- Containers: Production experience with containers and container orchestration, such as Kubernetes.
- Core Technical Skills: Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Python, Go, TypeScript, or C++, plus shell scripting and Linux systems.
- AI in Your Workflow: Comfort using AI-assisted tools in your engineering work, or a strong interest in building that habit. We’ll help you ramp up on how we use AI here.

## Nice to Have

- Familiarity with API gateways, load balancers, or CDNs.
- Familiarity with modern authentication and authorization, such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC, or cloud IAM.
- Experience with GPU workloads or ML infrastructure.
- Experience with message queuing systems.

Location & Work Model This role is based in our San Francisco or Sunnyvale, CA office, or in Bellevue, WA. We work in a high-collaboration environment and ask team members to be on-site a minimum of 3 days per week.

## Compensation & Benefits

The base salary range for this position is $171,000 - $230,000 for Bay Area candidates and $162,500 - $218,500 for Seattle/Bellevue candidates. Actual salary is based on assessed skills, experience, and location. This role is also eligible for equity, bonus, and benefits. Your recruiter can answer questions about total compensation during the hiring process.

Inclusive Application We know the strongest candidates don't always tick every box. If you're excited about this role and believe you could do it well, we encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't match every qualification listed — you may be exactly who we're looking for.

## Equal Opportunity

Niantic Spatial is an equal opportunity employer. Individuals seeking employment at Niantic Spatial are considered without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), marital status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected category under applicable laws. Niantic Spatial will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in accordance with applicable laws. Please contact your recruiter if you want to request an accommodation for the job application or interview process.

Candidate Privacy I understand that by submitting my job application, the information I provide as part of that application will be used in accordance with Niantic Spatial's Privacy Notice for Job Applicants and Candidates https://www.nianticspatial.com/applicant-privacy-notice.

## About Niantic Spatial

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Niantic Spatial builds real-world foundation models and spatial intelligence systems that enable machines to reconstruct, localize within, and understand the physical world at global scale.
- **Entity Type**: Private (startup, spun out of Niantic in 2025)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, CA, USA (with offices in Sunnyvale, Bellevue, London, and Tokyo)
- **Founded**: 2025 (as Niantic Spatial; roots trace back to Keyhole, founded 2001, and Niantic Labs, 2011)
- **Founders**: John Hanke (Founder & Executive Chairman); Thomas Gewecke (CEO), Brian McClendon (CTO), Inhi Cho Suh (President & COO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Geospatial AI, physical AI infrastructure, spatial computing, robotics, defense, energy, construction, logistics
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises in robotics, oil & gas, defense, large venues, construction, logistics; public sector; also powers consumer apps via Scaniverse
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Build a living model of the world that people and machines can talk to.”

## Products & Services
- **Large Geospatial Model (LGM)** – The core engine trained on one of the largest datasets of real‑world spatial imagery. It powers reconstruction, localization, and understanding capabilities at global scale. Accessed via Scaniverse and licensed to partners. (Model/API)
- **Reconstruct** – High‑fidelity, geo‑referenced 3D models (meshes and Gaussian splats) created from any standard camera, 360° camera, drone, LiDAR, or satellite imagery. (Technology/Service)
- **Localize (Visual Positioning System)** – Precise global positioning and orientation for humans and machines, even in GPS‑degraded or denied environments (indoors, outdoors, anywhere). (Technology/API)
- **Understand** – Spatial foundation models that give AI the ability to reason about the physical world: semantic understanding at every 3D point, queryable in natural language. (Technology/API)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Over 300 million user‑contributed scans; 30+ billion posed images from real‑world locations; 140+ patents filed or pending
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Backed by Niantic (the Pokémon GO creator) and its internal resources; no external funding round publicly announced. Partnerships in defense, energy, construction, logistics, and large venues.
- **Growth Signals**: Formed as an independent company in 2025; actively hiring for senior engineering roles (Computer Vision, Tech Lead, AI Data Operations); expanding from consumer AR into enterprise and government sectors.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Deep heritage**: Founders built Keyhole (acquired by Google, became Google Earth/Maps) and later created the world’s first global Visual Positioning System at Niantic.
- **Unique data moat**: 300M+ crowdsourced scans and 30B+ posed images provide a proprietary dataset of real‑world spatial imagery that competitors would find extremely difficult to replicate.
- **Planetary‑scale deployment**: Proven ability to operate at global scale (Pokémon GO had 500M+ users); technology already battle‑tested in demanding consumer and enterprise environments.
- **Patent portfolio**: 140+ patents covering spatial reconstruction, localization, and understanding.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue building spatial foundation models that can reason about the physical world in natural language
- Expand vertical markets: robotics (warehouse, delivery, autonomous), defense (DDIL environments), oil & gas (facility digital twins), large venues, and construction
- Drive adoption of the Large Geospatial Model (LGM) as the standard for physical AI reasoning
- Integrate consumer‑facing Scaniverse as the front door to the LGM, simultaneously feeding the model with new user scans

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & mission**: High‑impact startup environment focused on a mission to create a living 3D model of the world; employees describe it as fast‑moving and collaborative
- **Work model**: Hybrid – blends in‑office collaboration with flexibility. Offices in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Bellevue, London, and Tokyo.
- **Benefits**: 100% paid healthcare for employees, short‑/long‑term disability & life insurance (premiums covered), generous parental leave, flexible time off, 401(k) with company match, stock option grants (equity participation), and legal assistance (ARAG).
- **Engineering culture**: Deep technical challenges in computer vision, geospatial AI, large‑scale ML, and robotics; tight‑knit team of experts from Google Earth, Niantic, and the AR industry.
- **Growth trajectory**: Newly independent company with strong backing, ample opportunity to shape the product and technical direction.

## Sources
1. [nianticspatial.com – Homepage](https://www.nianticspatial.com/)
2. [nianticspatial.com – Careers](https://www.nianticspatial.com/careers)
3. [nianticspatial.com – About](https://www.nianticspatial.com/about)
4. [nianticspatial.com – About (alternate)](https://www.nianticspatial.com/en/about)

## Other roles at Niantic Spatial

- [3D Computer Vision Research Engineer, Geospatial Visual Localization](https://feeny.ai/job/3d-computer-vision-research-engineer-geospatial-visual-localization-niantic-1ff9cc2q6npq) — London, United Kingdom
- [Software Engineering Intern (Summer 2027) - Native SDK & Mobile Platforms](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineering-intern-summer-2027-native-sdk-mobile-platforms-niantic-scn067tjp7vy) — San Francisco, CA
- [Staff/Senior Staff Computer Vision Engineer - Map team](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-senior-staff-computer-vision-engineer-map-team-niantic-spatial-san-gqk1m7pa51ps) — San Francisco, CA
- [3D Computer Vision Research Engineer - World Map](https://feeny.ai/job/3d-computer-vision-research-engineer-world-map-niantic-spatial-london-80v4ka40p8zy) — London, United Kingdom
- [3D Reconstruction Research Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/3d-reconstruction-research-scientist-niantic-spatial-london-jtj724025ekz) — London, United Kingdom
- [AI Engineer, Computer Vision](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-engineer-computer-vision-niantic-spatial-san-francisco-z0gjw688cfax) — San Francisco, CA
- [Staff Engineer - Robot Learning, Embodied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-robot-learning-embodied-ai-niantic-spatial-san-francisco-4ef37kb9rjer) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior/Staff Product Engineer, Embodied AI](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-product-engineer-embodied-ai-niantic-spatial-san-francisco-76wfnqgtf15f) — San Francisco, CA
- [Hardware Operations Engineer - Robotics, Real-World Test Lab](https://feeny.ai/job/hardware-operations-engineer-robotics-real-world-test-lab-niantic-spatial-san-wda3z89zfvn3) — San Francisco, CA
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