Senior Embedded Software Engineer

About AirGarage

AirGarage is on a mission to bring real estate online, starting with parking.

We replace broken parking machines, fragmented software, and manual, labor-intensive operations with a unified, data-rich operating system for parking real estate. We handle everything it takes to run and optimize a parking asset: payments, dynamic pricing, enforcement, license plate recognition, analytics, and more.

By building all of our technology in-house, we are able to deliver a magical experience for drivers while providing real-time visibility and revenue increases of 20-50% or more for real estate owners. That’s why national real‑estate leaders like Hines and Greystar, as well as technology companies like Meta, partner with AirGarage to optimize their parking facilities.

AirGarage uses datapoints like real-time occupancy, local events, weather, driver behavior, competitor pricing, and more to bring true intelligence to real estate owners’ assets for the first time.

We’re investing aggressively to make the physical world legible to a digital system: cameras, sensors, and software that generate a firehose of real-time data about the world around us. That data fuels models and algorithms that allow us to optimize performance at each property while giving owners the clarity and control they’ve never had before.

Before you can optimize an asset, you need to observe it. Before you can observe it, you need to bring it online.

We are starting with the $131 billion US parking real estate market because it is one of the most offline and mismanaged commercial real estate asset types. 26% of the land area in the median American urban core is dedicated to parking.

We are backed by top tier investors including Headline Growth, Andreessen Horowitz, Floodgate, Founders Fund, Abstract Ventures, and angel investors who have founded or worked at companies like Uber, Opendoor, Flexport, and more.

Want to learn more about AirGarage and the problem we're tackling?

Check out these podcasts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU0NkDK51E4
https://youtu.be/_8aM6NQHYiE?si=p5WIujBWUA1sG-b7

THE ROLE 👨‍💻

We are looking for an Embedded Software Engineer to build and maintain the edge applications that power our next-generation LPR (license plate recognition) devices. You will shape how these systems operate in the field, from the Linux layer to the applications that capture, process, and transmit video and metadata at scale.

You will own the delivery of reliable, production-grade software that runs on thousands of devices. Your work will keep our hardware online and performant, integrate seamlessly with our backend, and influence system design choices that define how our products evolve. You will strengthen our embedded software stack and drive improvements that make deployments faster, updates smoother, and performance more robust.

This role offers the opportunity to make a visible impact on real-world systems. It is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of Linux platforms and application development and who wants to see their work directly improve the performance and reliability of products in the field.

Our stack:

• Devices: Embedded Linux (Debian, Yocto), Python, C++

• Observability: DataDog, Hex, SQL

• Data: Postgres, Snowflake

• Infra: AWS, GCP, Docker, RabbitMQ, Redis, Github Actions

• Backend: Python, Django, DRF

WHAT YOU WILL DO 🚀

• Architect and evolve the embedded software stack (defining system boundaries, module interfaces, and communication flows) to ensure scalability, maintainability, and efficient integration with backend services.

• Build and maintain edge applications on embedded Linux devices, including software for real-time video capture and processing.

• Customize and extend Yocto-based Linux builds to support production hardware and future device features.

• Implement and maintain software for computer vision, OCR, or other ML inference tasks at the edge.

• Develop and maintain containerized environments using Docker to streamline testing, deployment, and reproducibility.

• Contribute to OTA (over-the-air) update pipelines and automated testing frameworks to ensure reliable deployments across the fleet.

• Integrate devices with backend systems using pub/sub messaging frameworks (ex. NATS JetStream, Kafka, Redis, or MQTT) to connect devices with backend infrastructure.

• Collaborate closely with hardware engineers to optimize software for sensors, cameras, and other peripherals.

• Troubleshoot and debug board and system level issues using logs, schematics, Linux tools, and protocol analysis.

• Author clear documentation, best practices, and internal guides to support the team and streamline problem solving.

WHAT YOU NEED 🧠

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience developing embedded Linux or edge applications.

• Strong proficiency in Python and Bash, with experience shipping production-quality code.

• Command-line comfort: you should live in the terminal.

• Experience with Docker for creating consistent testing and deployment environments.

• Hands-on experience with Yocto/bitbake to customize and build Linux images for production hardware.

• Familiarity with OTA update frameworks and tools (ex. Mender) and managing software across a device fleet.

• Hands-on experience with Linux systems (dmesg, journalctl, ip, systemd, etc.) and debugging distributed hardware/software environments.

• Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools (e.g., DataDog, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana) and building internal tooling for device health and alerting.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to translate complex technical findings into clear reports and playbooks.

• Self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, ownership-driven environment.

NICE TO HAVE 🌟

• Experience with computer vision, OCR, or running ML models at the edge for real-time video or sensor processing.

• Background in RTOS or microcontroller development (Zephyr, FreeRTOS).

• Proficiency in C++ and SQL.

• Low-level userland familiarity: memory pages, cache locality, POSIX commands.

• Knowledge of hardware interfaces such as CAN, I2C, SPI, and RS485.

• Exposure to automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, or Hardware-in-the-Loop validation setups.

• Background in cellular (4G LTE, CAT 4, CAT 1bis, 5G RedCap), WiFi, WiFi HaLow, or other wireless connectivity.

• Robotics or industrial controls background is a plus.

IMPORTANT NOTE 🚨

AirGarage is a remote-first company, but we also value in-person collaboration to strengthen trust and teamwork. Team members should expect ~6 weeks of travel per year for:

• 2–3 full company offsites, “Remote Weeks”

• Lending a hand to support 2 new location launches

• In-person onboarding as well as supporting other onboarding sessions for new team members

The rest of the year, team members can work remotely from wherever (US time zones) they’re most comfortable as long as they are performing well in their role. Attendance at in-person events throughout the year is expected—if you’re not open to traveling ~6 weeks per year for work, this role isn’t a good fit for you.

THE UPSIDE 📈

• 📈 Equity: Have a stake in the business that you’re helping to build and grow.

• 🌴 Work remotely: Live and work wherever you like! We believe in folks working where they are happiest and most productive. We currently hire teammates that are located anywhere within North America.

• 🏥 Health insurance: We offer health insurance and currently cover 85% of the cost of medical plans for the primary employee and 50% of the cost of plans for dependents.

• 🍼 Parental Leave: We offer 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave to all parents to bond with a newly born, adopted, or fostered child. The 12 weeks can be taken as a continuous leave or intermittently over the first 18 months of the child's life.

• 💻 Home office setup: Get a laptop + additional equipment needed to set you up for success.

• ⛺ Time to recharge: We have an unlimited PTO policy with a minimum requirement of 10 days per year.

• 🤑 401k: Make financial planning right for you with a 401k retirement savings program.

• ✈️ Team Off-sites: ~2 times per year our team comes together for a full week in places like Tahoe, Puerto Vallarta, San Diego, and Austin.

• 📚 BookGarage: Our team loves to learn and grow together so join us for our optional recurring book club.

• 🪴Room to grow:  Our team will be orders of magnitude larger within a few years, as a part of our foundational team you'll have opportunities to grow with us.

• 🏙️ Transform our cities: The opportunity to change the way that the world thinks about real estate use in our cities.

• 👐 Work with a diverse team: At AirGarage, we've always been committed to building a thriving team that represents the communities we serve. Our team is currently 40% female and 30%+ from underrepresented communities.

We understand that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' candidate. We're looking for someone passionate, with grit and determination, who is excited to face the challenges of a rapidly growing startup. AirGarage is the type of company where you can grow exponentially, and we encourage you to apply to us even if you don't 100% match the candidate description.

AirGarage is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.  Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance.  We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, martial status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.