
Senior/Staff Software Engineer - Mesh Networking
Somana is a hardware, software, and services platform powering rapid improvements in capacity, throughput, yield, and quality. Our compute platform will talk to hundreds of peripherals, survive factory floors, and keep getting smarter - which means the network fabric that binds modems, WiFi, sensors, cameras, switches, and compute subsystems together is as critical as the silicon itself. If you have a passion for solving hard distributed systems problems under real-world constraints — bandwidth-limited RF links, dynamic topologies, strict latency requirements — then this role is for you.
ROLE OVERVIEW
As a Staff Software Engineer, you will own the software architecture and hands-on implementation of the core networking and communication systems that power our family of compute products. You will be the subject-matter expert for all things L1-L4, who still reads schematics, reviews driver code, debugs packet traces, and cares deeply about interrupt latency. You will be the one who knows whether a timing issue is in the PHY, the driver, or the scheduler - because you've been in that exact fight before on products at scale.
Responsibilities
- Design and improve the networking software stack, from prototype through high-volume production and field deployment, to operate reliably, securely, and compliantly
- Define and own the L1-L4 networking architecture across heterogeneous interfaces
- Manage scalability and performance tuning of multi-interface networks under real-world factory conditions; optimize for bandwidth, latency, jitter, and power
- Serve as the primary technical interface between software, electrical, and firmware engineering teams, ensuring that networking constraints are resolved as a unified system across varied environments
- Drive hardware bring-up and validation of networking subsystems, from BSP integration through driver development, protocol tuning, and production diagnostics
- Own field reliability of the network stack: packet loss budgets, failover logic, HA, OTA pipelines, and degraded-mode behavior when factory conditions are not perfect
- Establish design standards, documentation, and code review norms appropriate for a team that is moving fast but shipping hardware that has to last
Job Requirements
- BS or MS degree in Computer Science, Electrical / Computer Engineering, or related experience
- Proficiency in a systems programming language (Rust, C, C++, or Go)
- 5+ years of professional experience designing, implementing, and shipping networking, robotics middleware, or embedded software systems at scale
- Demonstrated track record of owning network architecture across multiple physical interfaces - you have shipped products that had to coordinate cellular, WiFi, Ethernet, and/or sensor/camera links under one software stack
- Deep hands-on experience with Nix or Linux networking internals, user space development, and multi-threading or concurrent programming
- Proven ability to debug at the hardware/software boundary: protocol analyzers, oscilloscopes, JTAG, packet traces, and vendor BSPs are tools you have actually used to solve real problems
- Strong systems intuition and communication skills
- BONUS POINTS FOR:
- Experience building networking systems for compute or edge platforms that operate in challenging physical environments: industrial IoT, energy storage, wireless mesh networks, or cloud-edge connectivity
- Comfort with manufacturing and production processes for networking hardware: RF validation, certification awareness (FCC/CE), DFM considerations for antenna and connector placement, and production test harness design
- Enjoy reading / research in the field of robotics, computer vision, sensor fusion, or similar
