Engineering At Samsara, Life At Samsara

Unlocking Vehicle Telematics with Samsara Engineering

July 23, 2024

Rick Carragher
Rick Carragher

SVP of Engineering

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At Samsara, we bring technology to the world of physical operations and help to increase the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of the organizations that power our global economy. Our customers are the organizations that deliver the food we eat, maintain the roads we travel, and power the homes we live in. They are the backbone of the economy, producing 40% of the GDP.  With tens of thousands of customers managing large-scale operations, we have the opportunity to make a significant impact. 

Within one year, we estimated that Samsara’s products and technology have enabled our customers to prevent 200,000+ vehicle crashes, digitize 230 million+ workflows, and save 3 billion pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

One of our key solutions for our customers is Vehicle Telematics, which encompasses a wide range of products designed to address various challenges of fleet management. From varying geographic environments and evolving road conditions to regulatory changes and the shift toward fleet electrification, the complexity and diversity of our customers’ operations present unique technical challenges for our Vehicle Telematics engineers. Our cloud platform processes over 9 trillion data points each year captured by Samsara hardware, enabling our engineers to develop solutions to monitor, manage, and optimize fleet operations.

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Key Areas of Telematics Engineering

Gain insights into a few of our key telematics products directly from the engineers who design and develop them:

GPS & Fleet Tracking

One of the core components of our Telematics solution is GPS & Fleet Tracking. Our engineers designed and developed the Vehicle Gateway, a robust IoT sensor built for diverse vehicle types and harsh environments. It leverages cellular networks to transmit real-time data on vehicle and driver performance, including accurate GPS tracking and remote engine diagnostics like fuel level and mileage. Our technology allows fleet managers to monitor the location and status of their vehicles and unlocks a wide array of customizable reports and alerts, enabling insights and real-time notifications for our customers as part of our Connected Operations Cloud platform. By providing detailed insights into vehicle routes, idle times, and driver behavior, our GPS & Fleet Tracking products help customers reduce operational costs, improve driver safety, and increase overall efficiency.

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Real-World Example: Mohawk Industries, the largest flooring manufacturer in the world and a Samsara customer, upgraded and fully digitized their entire routing process in just a few months, streamlining the driver experience and decreasing route communication time by 93% with API integration.

Fuel & Energy, Eco-Driving, and Electric Vehicles

At Samsara, our commitment to sustainability is integral to our mission. Our Fuel & Energy, EcoDriving, and Electric Vehicle products are designed to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel usage, helping fleets minimize their environmental footprint and costs by optimizing for energy efficiency. We aggregate precise vehicle data across a diverse range of vehicle makes and models to extract actionable insights. The sheer volume of data demands robust processing capabilities and scalability to develop solutions such as advanced fuel monitoring to manage consumption, an Eco-Driving tool that promotes fuel-efficient driving habits, and management tools for electric vehicle fleets. 

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Real-World Example: GP Transco, a trucking and logistics company, saves about 200,000 gallons of fuel, or $500,000 in annual fuel costs, using Samsara’s fuel efficiency tools.

Global Compliance

Compliance with regulations is a critical aspect of fleet management. Our customer base spans multiple countries that all have unique trucking regulations and laws. Our Global Compliance products, which include a comprehensive suite of multi-platform solutions spanning mobile (iOS and Android) and web, ensure our customers can easily adhere to complex regulatory requirements, streamlining compliance workflows, avoiding fines, and keeping drivers safe.

Global Compliance runs some of the biggest engineering systems at Samsara. We cater to drivers as they operate their vehicles cross-country, going through areas of sparse and intermittent cellular connectivity.  This comes with many challenges in terms of eventual consistency between the driver, fleet administrators, and on-the-road functionality. Our engineers build solutions to tackle these problems at large scales.

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Real-World Example: Dohrn Transfer Company used Samsara’s Compliance product to proactively reduce vehicle downtime, accelerating response times to maintenance issues by 40%.

Join Samsara’s Telematics Team

Tens of thousands of customers are using our Vehicle Telematics solution to streamline fleet operations, reduce costs, cut fuel usage and CO2 emissions, and enhance safety—and this is just the beginning. As the landscape of physical operations evolves, our team is continuously expanding our telematics solution, tackling exciting technical challenges, and discovering new ways to help our customers succeed.

Samsara Engineering is hiring, and we’re looking for people who are curious and passionate about solving real-world challenges. Check out our open positions and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for the latest updates.

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