In 2024, Samsara opened an office in Bengaluru, India, as part of its ongoing global expansion to improve the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of the operations that power the global economy. 

As a dedicated R&D hub, Bengaluru's engineering teams are central to developing our foundational platform and infrastructure. This includes building cloud infrastructure for seamless product operation and creating shared components for a unified customer experience. This work directly impacts customers by providing a cohesive interface across hardware, firmware, and data analysis, enabling them to gain powerful insights and optimise their physical operations.

For us, this is more than just building on our outstanding engineering excellence. It’s an investment in the people and creative minds of those committed to shaping the future of connected operations.

Here, we catch up with Senior Software Engineer, Vidushi Rai, to find out what life is like in Bengaluru, how the team is shaping the future of connected operations, and what makes it such an exciting place to work.

Vidushi, please tell us about your Samsara journey. 

Sure. I joined Samsara in 2019 after graduating from the University of Illinois, where I studied Computer Science. During that time, I worked on building features for refrigerated trailers like tyre pressure monitoring. I then moved to backend infrastructure to work on our in-house time-series database and our IoT data ingestion pipeline. But when I heard about Samsara opening a new office in Bengaluru, I jumped at the chance. Since I grew up there, it felt like a full-circle moment.

What happened next? 

I moved to Bengaluru in November 2024 as part of a rotation to help set up the team. I’ve been leading eight engineers, one Technical Program Manager (TPM), and one manager. This team has achieved so much in such a short time. We’ve helped to improve reliability, reduce costs, and enhance security for our customers. Plus, we’ve been able to explore future roadmap projects. It’s really exciting. 

Can you share an example of a project your team has worked on?

Of course! One major project has centred around further strengthening the reliability of our platform. We noticed occasional device disconnections, which impacted the flow of real-time data for fleet operators. To solve this problem, our engineers recreated some of our infrastructure in a sandbox environment to perform experiments on our IoT data. This led to root causing a niche edge case which can significantly improve reliability and reduce downtime.

Are there any other projects you’d like to highlight?

Another cool project this team worked on was improving the quality of our geo data and doing it at scale. At Samsara, nearly all customer features rely on location data. We serve this information by converting GPS coordinates into human-readable addresses using an open source geo database. 

Given the open-source nature of this geo database, verifying geo data updates is necessary to ensure that we are delivering high-quality data to our customers. This also helps us safely expand our product offerings to new regions.

And it goes without saying that security is a top priority for us and a core part of everything we do. But that doesn’t stop us from constantly looking at ways to make our communications even more secure, ensuring customer data remains safe, and preventing breaches.

What you’re describing is the ‘backend’ of Samsara’s platform – the bits that most people don’t get to see. 

You’re right. If you think about who uses our technology such as drivers and operators, they use things like our workflow app. Or they might simply tap in an address or check the status of something. Either way, it’s all very intuitive and they follow the instructions without a second thought.

And yet, everything they interact with is dependent on backend infrastructure – technology they never see – that ensures data is accurate, secure, and delivered in real-time. 

This backend technology is foundational. It may not be glamorous to some people, but it’s critical. Everything we do here in Bengaluru – whether it’s improving reliability, securing communications, or ensuring data quality – enables our customers to focus on their operations without worrying about the technology.

That’s a great point. Back-end work often goes unnoticed by end users, but it’s this complex innovation that makes everything else possible. You’ve talked a lot about setting up the office in Bengaluru. How does this compare to the US?

The vibe is very similar. One of my goals when I arrived here was to replicate Samsara’s collaborative approach to problem-solving.. It’s important that everyone feels supported and part of the larger team – even though we’re in India and our colleagues may be in Europe or the US. 

We also have a hybrid office setup, which means we have plenty of opportunities to have deep-dive, face-to-face conversations about systems architecture.

How would you sum up what Samsara in Bengaluru means to you and your colleagues? 

For me, Samsara in Bengaluru is about building something that lasts – not just great technology, but a team of passionate innovators that people want to be part of. It’s a place where engineers take ownership, solve real-world problems, and see the impact of their work every day.

What we’re building here isn’t just another engineering office – it’s a chance to shape something from the ground up, to be part of a team that moves fast, and works on problems that matter.

More than anything, it’s an exciting place to work – where learning is constant, ideas are welcomed, and the work isn’t just meaningful but genuinely interesting. I love it!

You can find out more about Samsara’s open positions in Bengaluru here.