Software Engineer - On-Device & Backend Systems

Job Title

Software Engineer - On-Device & Backend Systems

Role Summary

Own the end-to-end software architecture spanning Meta's custom SoC platform, on-device AOSP-based software, and backend services that extend device capabilities to the cloud. The role requires leading cross-boundary technical decisions across silicon, device software, and scalable backend infrastructure.

Work closely with silicon, firmware, OS platform, ML, product, and infrastructure teams to deliver reliable, low-latency device–cloud experiences and production consumer devices.

Experience Level

Senior — requires significant experience. Minimum qualification listed: 10+ years in systems software engineering with deep experience across on-device/embedded platforms and backend/distributed systems.

Responsibilities

Design and deliver the full stack integration between on-device platform software and backend services; drive cross-team architecture and operational decisions.

• Define and own system architecture across on-device software (AOSP, HALs, system services) and backend services to ensure low latency, reliability, and coherent data flow.
• Design platform software to leverage custom SoC capabilities (hardware accelerators, DSPs, specialized compute) via HALs and native frameworks.
• Diagnose and resolve complex issues spanning silicon bring-up, OS layers, network transport, and backend interactions.
• Architect and operate backend systems for model serving, telemetry, OTA updates, device management, and cloud offload with scale and cost efficiency.
• Drive performance optimizations across device and cloud: scheduling, serialization/transport, and backend throughput/latency.
• Partner with silicon teams to define software requirements and influence silicon roadmaps.
• Establish end-to-end observability, metrics, and reliability frameworks covering device health through backend SLAs.
• Communicate architecture decisions and trade-offs to stakeholders and lead cross-organizational integration efforts.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience; preferred items listed separately.

• 10+ years in systems software engineering with deep experience across embedded/on-device platforms and backend/distributed systems.
• Proven experience leading complex initiatives that span hardware, software, and cloud with measurable organizational impact.
• Deep understanding of Android platform internals (AOSP): system services, HAL interfaces, native frameworks, build and integration workflows.
• Proficiency in C/C++ for on-device systems and Java/Kotlin or Python/C++ for backend service development.
• Experience with custom silicon or SoC platforms, including hardware bring-up, driver integration, or HAL development.
• Experience designing and operating large-scale backend services (RPC frameworks, data pipelines, model serving, distributed storage).
• Strong system-level debugging skills across hardware traces, OS profiling, network diagnostics, and backend observability.
• Experience shipping consumer devices or embedded systems at scale alongside supporting cloud infrastructure.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience with on-device ML inference, model optimization, and cloud-to-device model deployment.
• Familiarity with firmware/software co-design, DSP programming, hardware accelerator integration, or silicon validation.
• Experience with power-aware software design, OTA systems, device fleet management, or A/B experimentation for hardware products.
• Background in real-time or low-latency systems (sensor fusion, streaming media, interactive workloads) and wearable/AR/VR or IoT at scale.
• Experience defining stable APIs/contracts between on-device and backend systems and applying responsible AI practices.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a relevant technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

About the Company

Company: Meta Platforms

Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, United States

American technology company that develops social networking products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and invests in virtual/augmented reality hardware and software through Reality Labs, focusing on connectivity, advertising, and immersive computing experiences.