Elite Software Engineers (U.S. Citizens/LPR Only)

TL;DR: Seeking elite software engineers, $150K to $250K+ plus equity, full time in office, Vienna, VA. Well-funded, growing company with founders who have multiple prior exits. U.S. citizens and permanent residents only.

You can also see many of our open roles at

This role is open to U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR/"Green Card"). No security clearance is required. Please DO NOT apply if you require visa sponsorship or are outside the U.S., as we have no ability to sponsor visas.

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For this role (multiple vacancies):

We are seeking elite (top 5%) software engineers with 3+, preferably 5+ years in software engineering for a deeply technical, fast-growing, well-funded company in Vienna, VA.

The founding team has started and sold two prior companies, the last one to a top tech company, and has recently raised a very large funding round. They are building automated methods to test and verify large, complex software systems, which requires very strong experience in algorithms, the guts of kernels, databases, distributed systems, etc. The team is about 50 engineers and scientists, and the hiring bar is high.

The founders told us that, "We like working on impossible problems because when you solve them, you make a lot of money," and they have a track record of doing this.

Open engineering roles include:

• Software Engineers (3+, preferably 5+ years)
• Senior Backend Engineer
• Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack
• Senior Systems Engineer, Database
• Applied AI Software Engineer

Salary range is $150K to $250K, depending on the equity mix (above $200K should have 10+ years of solid experience and a strong technical interview). Great benefits. More details will be provided to qualified candidates.

The engineers we are seeking already know lots of languages and are comfortable with many different technologies/stacks, but here are some examples of what the company is using in different areas:

• Front-end (TypeScript/JavaScript/HTML)
• Back-end & Systems (Rust/TypeScript/Linux Kernel/Networking/Distributed Systems)
• Embedded (C/C++/x86/VMX/VMM) (software NOT hardware focused)
• Build & Infrastructure (Nix/NixOS/Terraform/Lambda)
• Security (Rust/mTLS/eBPF/PKI/SOC2)

With rare exceptions, we are only considering candidates with a computer science degree (undergrad or master's) because, in our experience, this background is needed for success in the technical interviews.

The interview process typically involves a phone screen, a technical coding interview (can be virtual), and several on-site interviews. Often part of the on-site is a technical presentation on a problem you have solved or something you have built, and the discussion goes from there.

We ARE looking for ANY/ALL of:

• Nix!
• Solving hard technical problems (any flavor)
• Prior experience delivering products
• Experience working/scaling a strong team

We are NOT looking for:

• PowerBI/dashboards
• .NET
• Mobile apps
• Recent college graduates
• Remote-only candidates
• Non-US citizens/LPRs (NO visa sponsorship)

We have several companies seeking similar skill sets in Northern Virginia. If this company is not a fit, we will consider you for our other open roles as well.

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About us:

Task Force Talent is a specialized recruiting firm for science, engineering, and security careers. Our clients include seed to Series C startups working on AI, cybersecurity, and various novel software and hardware technologies. We also work with government contractors, and we help leading venture capital firms find talent for their portfolio companies. Most of our jobs are in VA, DC, and MD.

All of our positions are highly competitive -- our clients are generally looking for the top 5% of technical candidates.

You can see what clients and candidates say about us here: