Staff Software Engineer - Backend Services
Motive
Listing collected from Motive's career site. NextChapter is independent of Motive.
Seattle, WA · $164k–$200k a year · Posted October 31, 2026
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Where Seattle, WA ranks
Where Seattle, WA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the Pacific Northwest316 jobs · of 8
- #1Best cities for software and engineering jobs in the Pacific Northwest1,776 openings · of 14
- #2Best cities for energy and utilities pay after cost of living$180k · of 18
- #2Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills in the Pacific Northwest17% · of 12
- #2Best cities for AI-skill jobs in the Pacific Northwest26% · of 17
- #2Best cities for software and engineering jobs in the West Coast1,776 openings · of 60
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $182,000 a year. Across 426 open staff software engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $225,000 to $271,000 and the median is $242,500. That is 25% below the median, below the middle half of those listings.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
Staff Software Engineer salaries by state · Check your own pay
How AI is used in this kind of work
Among software developers, AI is already used for some of the tasks. Measured exposure for software developers: 29% (some).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.
About the job
Who we are:
Motive empowers the people who run physical operations with tools to make their work safer, more productive, and more profitable. For the first time ever, safety, operations and finance teams can manage their drivers, vehicles, equipment, and fleet related spend in a single system. Combined with industry leading AI, the Motive platform gives you complete visibility and control, and significantly reduces manual workloads by automating and simplifying tasks.
Motive serves nearly 100,000 customers – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses – across a wide range of industries, including transportation and logistics, construction, energy, field service, manufacturing, agriculture, food and beverage, retail, and the public sector.
Visit gomotive.com to learn more.
About the Role:
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Equipment Monitoring team, you will build the backend systems that give fleets unmatched visibility into the location, utilization, and health of their equipment - trailers, reefers, construction machinery, and small assets. Our data comes from IoT devices in the field: Asset Gateways, BLE environmental and door sensors, and Beacons. You will design and operate the ingestion and stream-processing pipelines (Kafka, Flink) that turn this raw sensor telemetry into accurate real-time locations, geofence events, trips, and alerts. You will collaborate closely with our Embedded/firmware and IoT teams on device payloads and end-to-end data flows, making this a great role for engineers who enjoy working near the hardware while building cloud services at scale.
What You'll Do:
Develop highly observable, reliable, and scalable backend services that process telemetry from hundreds of thousands of IoT devices (sensors, beacons, asset gateways).
Build and operate stream-processing pipelines (Kafka, Flink) powering geo-fencing, alerting, trip construction, and asset location.
Design, build, and maintain scalable APIs for both internal and external applications.
Collaborate with Embedded, IoT, and cross-functional teams on device data contracts and end-to-end feature delivery.
Champion engineering excellence by proactively reducing technical debt and improving code quality.
Leverage AI tools such as Cursor, CoPilot to increase productivity and code quality.
Actively work on our AWS Cloud infrastructure, and mentor and learn from other engineers to foster a culture of continuous growth.
What We're Looking For:
B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science or related field
5+ years software development experience
Experience building distributed systems and event-driven/stream-processing pipelines (Kafka, Flink, Kinesis or similar)
Experience in modern programming languages. Proficiency in Ruby, Golang, Kotlin/Java is a plus.
Experience with Relational and NoSQL databases such as PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Redis, and Cassandra
Experience building for Cloud Infrastructure such as AWS, GCP, Azure or private clouds
Experience with IoT/sensor data or geospatial systems (geofencing, location) is a plus
Ownership and Problem Solving mindset
Hybrid in the office two days a week
Pay Transparency Your compensation may be based on several factors, including education, work experience, and certifications. For certain roles, total compensation may include restricted stock units. Motive offers benefits including health, pharmacy, optical and dental care benefits, paid time off, sick time off, short term and long term disability coverage, life insurance as well as 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Learn more about our benefits by visiting Motive Perks & Benefits .
The compensation range for this position will depend on where you reside. For this role, the compensation range is:
United States $164,000 — $200,000 USD
Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is one of Motive's core values. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives.
Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here .
UK Candidate Privacy Notice here .
The applicant must be authorized to receive and access those commodities and technologies controlled under U.S. Export Administration Regulations. It is Motive's policy to require that employees be authorized to receive access to Motive products and technology.
Regarding US-based roles, depending on your role and primary work location, Motive Technologies, Inc. (“Employer”) discloses candidates may be required to execute a non-compete covenant with the Employer. This requirement does not apply to lawyers, interns, or employees working in CA, MN, MT, ND, OK, or where otherwise prohibited by law.
Non-compete covenant terms in all other jurisdictions will be subject to the applicable statutory requirements, including but not limited to, procedures, industry related prohibitions, or salary and compensation thresholds.
All job postings are for existing vacancies. Please note; some interviews or new-hire training sessions may be held in person at one of our global offices.