Staff Software Engineer
Alarm.com · Boston, MA
$144,250–$169,126
Jul 5, 2026
Boston, MA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A Staff Engineer role spanning two connected platform areas — device APIs, lifecycle management, and transport infrastructure on one side, and partner-facing integration infrastructure on the other. The work centers on defining shared architectural patterns, leading large multi-engineer initiatives end-to-end, and building reusable frameworks that other teams depend on. Suits a backend platform engineer with 10+ years of experience who has operated at Staff-level scope and can influence technical direction across organizational boundaries.
Staff level · 10+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Bachelor's required · Full-time
Pay in the description: $144,250–$169,127
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 170 people in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 130–270
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The job title in the posting is partially redacted ('We are hiring a to serve as…') but the role is clearly framed throughout as a Staff Software Engineer.
The degree requirement is a Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering listed under Required Qualifications with no 'or equivalent experience' escape clause — treated as a hard gate.
AI-assisted development fluency is explicitly called out as 'not optional for this role' in the Required Qualifications section, making it a hard gate despite being an unusual requirement.
Kafka is listed under Required Qualifications as 'Kafka or equivalent' — treated as a hard gate on event-streaming capability; common substitutes added to alternatives.
REST and gRPC are listed together as 'RESTful and/or gRPC APIs' in Required Qualifications — emitted as one skill (REST) with gRPC as an alternative since either satisfies the requirement.
.NET/C#, SQL Server, Kafka hands-on experience, IoT/device systems, microservices patterns, observability, and AI tooling specifics (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, MCP) all appear under Preferred Qualifications.
The role is 4 days/week in-office; the posting does not specify a city explicitly, but Alarm.com is headquartered in Tysons, VA (Washington DC metro area) — CBSA set accordingly.
11-3021 (Computer and Information Systems Managers) is noted as a runner-up because the Staff SE role carries significant cross-team technical leadership and influence, but the JD is explicit that this is a hands-on IC role writing code and leading designs, not a people-management position.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): AI-assisted development.
Read the full posting
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