Summary
✨ AI‑Generated
A technology organization is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to build real-time distributed systems connecting multiple services and devices. The role requires expertise in scalable architectures, messaging platforms, and reliable backend infrastructure.
Highlights
High-impact engineering role building real-time distributed services. Offers competitive compensation, equity participation, and opportunities to work on complex cloud and edge systems.
Description
Senior Backend Engineer - Drone Systems C2 (Real-Time Services / Rust)
Washington, California, Washington DC, or NYC
$145K–$275K + Equity
Kafka, NATS, gRPC, pub/sub
Build service layers that carry operator's command from a screen down to a drone in flight, & carries the live picture back up again.
Everything else on this team the 3D command interface, the simulation engine, the agent layer, the software on the aircraft runs on the middleware you own.
Successful candidates owned a real-time service that other engineering teams built on top of! -
Candidates who have worked with NATS would be super interesting.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Design and ship the cloud-and-edge middleware connecting four systems: onboard drone software, the 3D operator UI, the physics/simulation engine, and the LLM/agent layerReal-time data and messaging — streaming and pub/sub relaying data between many external servicesScalable, reliable, fail-safe microservices where a crash is not an acceptable outcomeService registration and discovery across distributed deployments — knowing what is running whereShips to real field hardware as well as cloud (Docker, Kubernetes, edge)Prototype-to-field loop with customers in the room; mature services hand off to a core team, so you are repeatedly building foundations
REQUIREMENTS:
4–10 years backend / service-layer engineering, currently hands-on (IC or player-coach of a small team)Built and owned middleware, APIs or microservices that joined multiple systems together — this is the signal we screen onReal-time data and messaging systems in production (Kafka, NATS, gRPC, pub/sub, streaming)Microservices at genuine scale FANG class consumer infrastructure.Strong in a modern backend or systems language — Rust, Python, C++ or Java.
Team is Rust-primary but does not test for Rust; the coding screen is in your language of choiceShipped in a fast prototype-to-field environment (startup or startup-like)Autonomous systems, AV, robotics or real-time systems background a plus — LLM/agent tooling a plus, but not what this role is about
NON-NEGOTIABLES:
US citizen, clearance-eligible.
No sponsorship, and green-card holders are not eligibleBased in or willing to relocate to Seattle, Palo Alto, Washington DC or NYC.
Hybrid, with travel to deployment sitesStill writing code daily this is not a director or architect-only seat
