Typical software engineer pay at startups: $221K median, middle half $188K–$256K (2,406 posted ranges).
Typical engineering pay at Motive: $149K–$200K — median of 11 listed ranges.
Across all startups we track: $170K–$242K for engineering roles (8,046 listed ranges).
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.
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.
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:
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.
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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.
From Motive's careers page. First seen Sep 18, 2026, last verified Oct 26, 2026.
Open roles: 158, up 11 (+7%) over the last 11 days.