Lead Software Engineer - Connected Device Software

We develop the software powering ~11,500 smart cameras deployed on sports fields worldwide. These aren't isolated web services; they are complex distributed systems that must stay in sync with physical hardware across unreliable networks in unpredictable conditions.

We're hiring a Lead Software Engineer to autonomously own a core technical system of our connected device platforms—covering automatic capture, device connectivity, video pipelines, and fleet management. You will set the technical direction and deliver on a 6–12 month roadmap, navigating ambiguity to become the key technical anchor for the squad.

You will partner closely with engineering and product leadership, understanding the 'why' behind our decisions to empower the team. You will be trusted with critical components of Hudl’s core foundation, ensuring we consistently deliver value for our stakeholders and customers.

As a Lead Software Engineer, you'll:

• Own a system end-to-end. Define and deliver the technical roadmap for a multi-phase area, refining as it evolves and resolving cross-group dependencies before they become blockers.
• Prevent fires, not just fight them. Preemptively identify and resolve technical risks. When incidents do hit, you drive urgency and own resolution within your domain.
• Proactively make the system better. You see operational pain and tech debt as design feedback . Build the tooling, libraries, and runbooks that make it go away for everyone.
• Raise the bar. Through code reviews, design reviews, and mentorship, you set the standard for quality and level up the engineers around you.
• Ship reliably at scale. You roll out major features with monitoring, telemetry, and failure domains understood up front as a complete system.
• Think in terms of process and systems. You look beyond shipping code to iterate on team workflows and improve processes to drive better outcomes.

Our priority is to hire someone for this role who lives near our office in Lincoln, NE, but we're also open to remote candidates who live in the following states: AL, AZ, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MI, MN, MO, NE, NH, NC, NV, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY.

• Autonomous systems ownership. You've owned a production technical system end-to-end — set its direction, delivered against a multi-month roadmap, and made independent calls under open-ended requirements.
• Distributed systems depth. You understand why systems break at scale, not just how to patch them. State, consistency, failure modes, and unreliable networks are familiar territory.
• Hardware or IoT (Internet of Things) experience. You've built software that talks to physical devices — cameras, sensors, embedded systems (not building the embedded systems themselves)— and you respect the gap between cloud assumptions and hardware reality.
• Operational ownership. You've led production incident response and you own the reliability of what you ship — monitoring, runbooks, and toil reduction are part of how you work, not someone else's job.
• You lift the team. You set the quality bar through reviews, mentor less-experienced engineers, and have driven cross-group initiatives that needed influence without authority.
• AI-augmented development. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar used as a force multiplier — with the judgment to evaluate output quality, not just generate it. You look at this new domain as more than a code generator, and understand the possibilities of this unlocking better autonomy, problem solving, and the way we all work together.
• Experience being a change agent. You come into teams and systems with the goal of understanding the state of the world, while constantly looking for ways to move the ball forward and leaving things better than you found it.

• Experience in AWS IoT Core. Device communication or fleet monitoring at scale is a plus
• Experience using Video pipeline tools. GStreamer, HLS, WebRTC, or similar streaming and video technologies.
• Our stack. .NET Core, Python, MongoDB/DocDB, Redis, and RabbitMQ
• Field hardware support. Software running on real-world hardware — firmware updates, remote diagnostics, connectivity triage.

• Champion work-life harmony. We’ll give you the flexibility you need in your work life (e.g., flexible vacation time, company-wide holidays and timeout (meeting-free) days, remote work options and more) so you can enjoy your personal life too.
• Guarantee autonomy. We have an open, honest culture and we trust our people from day one. Your team will support you, but you’ll own your work and have the agency to try new ideas. 
• Encourage career growth. We’re lifelong learners who encourage professional development. We’ll give you tons of resources and opportunities to keep growing.
• Provide an environment to help you succeed. We've invested in our offices, designing incredible spaces with our employees in mind. But whether you’re at the office or working remotely, we’ll provide you the tech stack and hardware to do your best work.
• Support your mental and physical health. We care about our employees’ wellbeing. Our Employee Assistance Program, employee resource groups and fitness partner Peerfit have you covered.
• Cover your medical insurance. We have multiple plans to pick from to ensure you’ll have the coverage you (and your dependents) want, including vision, dental, fertility healthcare and family forming benefits.
• Contribute to your 401(K). Yep, that’s free money. We’ll match up to 4% of your own contribution.