Software Engineer - Applied AI, Defense Applications

Description

The company builds software that helps organisations make data-driven decisions and run operations, by getting the right data to the people who need it.

This role sits in the Defense Applied AI product team, which builds AI products for the modern warfighter to use in mission-critical work.

Product development is organised into small teams of software engineers, each focused on one part of a product.

Responsibilities

• Help own the full end-to-end agent experience across the products, keeping quality high and making sure the agents deliver real value to users.
• Shift between tasks as needed: refining a workflow's UX with users one day, then tuning performance for lower latency or more accurate outcomes the next.
• Design and build AI agents that help defense and intelligence users investigate hard questions, analyse operational data, build plans and produce work they can act on.
• Improve agent quality through data-driven evaluations covering memory, tool and skill design, context management, fine-tuning and more.
• Work with cross-functional teammates to smooth user workflows so they feel consistent across product boundaries.
• Build interfaces that let users direct agents, track their progress, check the evidence behind them, review proposed actions and refine results.
• Take features from early experiments through to production, turning specific mission needs into dependable, reusable capabilities with users, designers and engineers.
• Improve speed and scalability through performance analysis, including work on large, complex datasets.

Requirements

• Required: Experience coding in languages such as Java, C++, Python, JavaScript or similar.
• Required: Strong software engineering skills and a record of delivering production applications.
• Required: Strong proficiency in React and TypeScript.
• Required: A degree or background in computer science, mathematics, software engineering, physics or a similar field.
• Required: Clear written and verbal communication, and the ability to iterate quickly with teammates, act on feedback and keep a high bar for quality.
• Required: An active US security clearance, or eligibility for one, and willingness to obtain a US security clearance.
• Valued: Strong product instincts and close attention to the details that make complex software intuitive.
• Valued: Ability to communicate and work with engineers, users and non-technical colleagues alike.
• Valued: Experience building LLM applications, including tool design, context management, agent workflows or evaluation.
• Valued: Willingness to learn, make decisions independently, ask good questions and iterate directly with users to own outcomes.
• Valued: Curiosity about emerging AI capabilities and good judgment about where they solve real user problems.

Conditions

The estimated base salary is $145,000 - $200,000/year.

Total compensation may also include Restricted Stock Units, a sign-on bonus and other possible future incentives, and depends on each candidate's qualifications, experience, skills and other factors.

The salary estimate excludes any sign-on bonus, the value of benefits and the future value of long-term incentives.

The company encourages in-person work in its offices. Many teams offer hybrid arrangements of 1 or 2 days a week from home.

A small number of roles are remote on an exceptional basis, and remote staff must work from the state where they are employed. Roles marked Onsite require working from an office.

The company will never ask candidates to pay or share financial information during interviews.

Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision insurance, plus voluntary life insurance, for employees and eligible dependents.
• Basic life, AD&D and disability insurance, covered automatically for employees.
• Commuter benefits and relocation assistance.
• Flexible paid time off, not accrued, plus 2 weeks of paid time off at the end of each year, subject to team and business needs.
• 10 paid holidays each calendar year.
• Leave of absence for military service and medical events.
• Paid leave for new parents and subsidised back-up care for all parents.
• Fertility and family-building support, including adoption, surrogacy and preservation.
• A stipend toward the costs of a new child.
• 401k plan enrolment.
• Career growth based on your strengths, skills and interests rather than fixed career ladders.