Senior Backend Systems Engineer - Real Time Video & Telemetry Streaming

About Overland AI Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Overland AI is transforming land operations for modern defense. The company leverages over a decade of advanced research in robotics and machine learning, as well as a field-test forward ethos, to deliver combined capabilities for unit commanders. Our OverDrive autonomy stack enables ground vehicles to navigate and operate off-road in any terrain without GPS or direct operator control. Our intuitive OverWatch C2 interface provides commanders with precise coordination capabilities essential for mission success. Overland AI has secured funding from prominent defense tech investors including 8VC and Point 72, and built trusted partnerships with DARPA, the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command. Backed by eight-figure contracts across the Department of Defense, we are strengthening national security by iterating closely with end users engaged in tactical operations.

Role Description We are seeking an experienced backend systems engineer to design, build, and run the real-time streaming infrastructure behind remote operation of our vehicles. You'll own the full path that video and telemetry take from the vehicle, across unreliable and bandwidth-limited networks, to the operator, and the path that commands take back. You'll work where low-latency media, networking, and robotics meet. That means building systems that keep the operator aware of what the vehicle sees and keep control safe when links degrade, drop, or switch between cellular, satellite, mesh radio, and other links. You'll make architecture decisions that trade off latency, image quality, reliability, and bandwidth, and you'll write the production code that puts those decisions into practice. What you'll do

• Design and build low-latency pipelines for video, telemetry, and feedback streaming between remote vehicles and operator stations.
• Design transport and session protocols that hold up on intermittent, high-latency, lossy, or asymmetric links. This includes graceful degradation, fast reconnection, prioritizing traffic, and adapting bitrate.
• Tune sensor-to-glass latency, jitter, and throughput across encoding, packetization, transport, and decoding.
• Build test and simulation tools that reproduce real network conditions, such as packet loss, link handover, congestion, and full outages.
• Add instrumentation and observability so you can measure stream health, latency budgets, and link quality in the field.
• Work with the robotics, autonomy, frontend, and hardware teams to define interfaces and system requirements.
• Mentor other engineers, lead technical design reviews, and help set engineering standards across the team.

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend, systems, and networking.
• Expert-level Python skills.
• Expert-level skills in at least one systems programming language: C++, Go, or Rust.
• Deep experience designing and shipping real-time video and/or telemetry streaming systems in production. Relevant areas include teleoperation of drones or unmanned ground vehicles and cloud game streaming (e.g., Stadia, GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming).
• A clear understanding of how to design streaming systems for intermittent or degraded links, including packet loss, jitter, reordering, latency spikes, and full disconnects.
• Solid knowledge of networking fundamentals: UDP/TCP, congestion control, NAT traversal, and the trade-offs between reliable and unreliable delivery.
• Hands-on experience with video encoding and decoding (e.g., H.264, H.265/HEVC, AV1) and the latency and quality trade-offs that come with them.
• Experience profiling and optimizing performance-critical, concurrent, or multithreaded code.
• A track record of owning complex technical systems from design through deployment and operation.
• A BS in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Desired Experience & Qualifications

• Experience in defense, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, or other safety-critical fields.
• Experience with WebRTC internals, including media and data channels, SRTP, SCTP, ICE/STUN/TURN, and congestion control algorithms.
• Experience with other real-time transports such as QUIC, RTP/RTCP, SRT, or custom UDP-based protocols.
• Experience streaming over cellular, satellite, or tactical/mesh radio networks.
• Experience with GStreamer, FFmpeg/libav, or similar media frameworks.
• An understanding of safety considerations in teleoperation system design.
• Experience building network emulation and test setups including custom impairment tooling.
• Experience with observability tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry) for real-time systems.
• Strong written communication skills, with experience writing design documents and leading cross-team technical discussions.

Location: The preferred location for this position is Seattle, WA.

Compensation And Benefits Pay Range: $180,000 - $230,000 annually Actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, and experience. Overland AI believes in creating a work environment that you look forward to embracing every day. Benefits Include:

• Equity compensation
• Best-in-class healthcare, dental and vision plans.
• Flexible PTO
• 401k with company match
• Parental leave
• Monthly wellness stipend
• One-time workplace & productivity reimbursement