Senior Software Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

Modern Intelligence is building the foundational AI for defense. Over the next decade, the US military and our allies will 10x the number of sensors we field to see the battlefield but cannot 10x the number of service members manually watching sensor feeds – the way sensor data is processed today. 

At Modern you will be working alongsideengineers, researchers, and businessmen, people who have backgrounds in the Army, the Navy, Biotech, Google, Raytheon, Anduril, the NSA, and more. 

We have raised more than $12M from investors such as Bedrock, Vine, Contrary, Air Street, Caffeinated, Champion Hill, Swell, Myelin and others.

One of our products, Cutlass, is an automated targeting AI that detects, remembers, and shares targets in real time by watching any sensor on any network – Delivering modular, insightful knowledge of where adversaries are on any drone, ship, vehicle, satellite, or command center. Our AI research helps Cutlass learn targets with little data, little compute, and the most intuitive, humane knowledge. Cutlass has been tested in multiple DOD exercises and is currently being used in live DOD missions.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to lead the Cutlass software team. We are looking for someone who is an outstanding and productive coder, butalso has strong design and leadership skills. They should be able to take high level requirements from their leaders, refine them, put together a design document, get their document appropriately reviewed, plan, and then lead the execution of those plans with minimal oversight from theirleaders.They should be able to provide an effective interface between their team, other teams, and their leaders both on the technical side as well as on the business side. 

As the Cutlass Software Lead you will work alongside our Director of Engineering, the Machine Learning Lead, and the Data Science Lead to set the direction for Cutlass as a whole. You will have tremendous influence over our tech stack and architecture, but also the future engineering culture at Modern, as well as the future of Modern as a company.

We are gathering the most ambitious AI researchers, software engineers, and mission leaders in defense because we believe defense is the future of defense, and defense is the future of AI.

This role requires someone who is capable of getting a DoD security clearance; someone who can work onsite to help establish the engineering culture at the company; as well as someone who is able to travel both domestically and internationally multiple times a quarter. 

Requirements

• Has led a team of 3+ junior engineers on projects that have spanned multiple quarters. 
• Experience coaching/mentoring junior engineers on topics such as code quality, version control best practices, testing, and other general software engineering skills (as well as be an expert on these topics themselves) 
• Experience writing and reviewing design documents 
• Strong organizational, planning, and communication skills. 
• Must be capable of getting a security clearance 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Python 
• Experience with Docker or other OCI software 
• Experience with time sensitive software (this might be expressed as working on embedded devices, safety critical systems, operating systems, media software, etc) 
• Experience interfacing Python with other languages (language bindings, SWIG, Boost Python, etc) 
• Experience with a compiled programming language - preferably either C, C++, or Rust

Nice to Have

• Experience with machine learning 
• Experience with ffmpeg or video transcoding 
• Experience with optics or applied math 
• Experience with Nuitka  or other Python compilation 
• Experience with Multiprocess Python  
• Experience with TypeScript  
• Experience with Node.js  
• Experience with LLVM  
• Security Clearance 

Equity 

Full medical, dental, and vision benefits 

Discretionary PTO 

Paid Parental Leave 

If you're passionate about leveraging your software engineering skills to develop life-saving technologies, push the boundaries of AI research, and work alongside the best in the field, we want you. Help us build the future of defense—apply now and make a tangible difference in the world! 

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.