About Knightscope
Knightscope is a security technology company building the Nation’s First Autonomous Security Force. The Company combines autonomous machines, advanced software, and human expertise to help protect people, property, and critical infrastructure. Knightscope’s long-term mission is to make the United States of America the safest country in the world.
About The Role
Knightscope is seeking two Senior Audio/Video Engineers to own the real-time audio and video infrastructure across the ICM and Signals platforms. These engineers will be responsible for the full A/V stack — from WebRTC ingest and GStreamer pipeline architecture to low-latency audio processing and multi-stream rendering. Given the thin talent pool for combined WebRTC and low-latency audio expertise, both positions will be recruited simultaneously.
Location Requirement
Full-time, on-site at Sunnyvale HQ (No relocation provided)
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain the end-to-end real-time video pipeline: WebRTC/RTSP/RTMP ingest, hardware-accelerated transcoding, and simultaneous multi-stream rendering for up to 10 concurrent robot video feeds.
- Architect and optimize GStreamer-based multi-branch pipelines for video capture, processing, recording, and cloud upload (S3) — including codec selection, pad/cap negotiation, and plugin development.
- Own the full audio subsystem: real-time two-way audio, SIP/VoIP integration (pjsip/Asterisk), text-to-speech (AWS Polly), and talk-down functionality with a sub-200ms end-to-end round-trip latency target.
- Implement and optimize WebRTC signaling, ICE, DTLS-SRTP, and media server components for reliable low-latency communication across distributed robot deployments.
- Profile, debug, and tune A/V pipeline performance for low latency, high throughput, and resilience under concurrent multi-robot load and variable network conditions.
- Build Make-a-Clip functionality enabling operators to extract, annotate, and store video segments from live and recorded feeds.
- Define and maintain A/V API contracts in collaboration with ICM and Signals platform engineers; contribute to code reviews, technical documentation, and on-call runbooks.
- Mentor junior engineers and contribute to architectural decisions across the A/V stack.
Required Qualifications
- 7–10 years of software engineering experience specializing in real-time audio and video systems in production environments.
- Deep expertise in WebRTC — including signaling protocols, ICE/STUN/TURN, DTLS-SRTP, RTP/RTCP, and media server architecture (Janus, mediasoup, or equivalent).
- Strong hands‑on proficiency with GStreamer at the developer level: building and debugging complex multi-branch media pipelines, working with elements, pads, caps, and custom plugins.
- Proficiency in C/C++ (C++11/14/17) for performance‑critical media and networking code; Python for tooling and automation.
- Solid experience with SIP/VoIP protocols and stacks (pjsip, Asterisk, or equivalent) and low‑latency audio processing.
- Strong understanding of audio/video codecs (H.264/H.265, VP9, AAC, Opus) and streaming protocols (RTSP, RTMP, HLS, RTP).
- Experience with AWS media services (S3, Kinesis Video Streams, Polly, or equivalent) and cloud‑based media pipeline architectures.
- Familiarity with hardware‑accelerated video processing (NVIDIA NVENC/NVDEC, V4L2, or equivalent) is a strong plus.
- BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
Compensation & Benefits
- Base Salary: $155,000 – $210,000 each (DOE)
- Equity: Stock options
- Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off
- Location Requirement: Full‑time, on‑site at Sunnyvale HQ