Software Systems Engineering

Software Engineer, Systems

Chariot Defense is a defense technology company that designs and manufactures a family of power products for the U.S. military and its allies. We believe that credible deterrence of armed conflict and winning if deterrence fails, requires more than just the best drones, sensors, weapons, electronic warfare systems, and command & control capabilities. Those critical components will require sustained electric power in austere and resource-constrained environments. Moreover, military units must be able to turn off the trucks and generators that generate this power to hide and survive. In other words, power generation must be decoupled from power consumption. Our product spans the entire software stack, from the embedded controls running on rugged hardware, through the networking and data plumbing in between, up to the databases and cloud systems that store and make sense of it all. We're looking for a true generalist who is comfortable everywhere on that spectrum: someone who can follow a piece of data from a sensor on the hardware all the way to a dashboard, and write code at every stop along the way. Your core competency is systems programming (C, C++, Rust), but you've had real exposure to the higher layers; services, databases, and cloud deployments.

This is software on physical hardware enabling higher-level capability, and we want someone energized by that full picture. S. military, and we're already fielded across DoD. This is a high-ownership, high-autonomy role for an engineer who'd rather see the whole product than live in one lane.

Move fluidly between low-level embedded work and higher-level services, picking up whatever layer needs attention rather than staying confined to one.

Bridge hardware and cloud: Build the pipelines that carry telemetry off our devices, through intermittently connected networks, and into databases and cloud environments where it can be stored, monitored, and analyzed.

Stand up and maintain the back-end services, databases, and cloud infrastructure that turn raw device data into something useful.

Apply systems programming where it counts: Bring low-level expertise to the places where performance and direct hardware interaction matter.

Work across firmware, embedded Linux, manufacturing, and product to connect the layers and unblock the team wherever the work demands it.

Top-notch engineering intuition and first principles thinking toward designing complex products that function seamlessly for your customer, taking both an engineering/technical, and product/customer approach, to strike the optimal balance.

Not satisfied by superficial explanations of a problem or "band-aid engineering"; seeks persistently to find the specific root cause through data-driven methods, and resolve failures or recurring issues, so they can be mitigated to prevent future such instances.

Gratified by helping your peers succeed, building a robust team culture, and propagation deep camaraderie amongst your peers; BS in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

• 3+ years building software across multiple layers of the stack.
• Strong systems programming experience (C/C++/Rust).
• Demonstrated experience moving data from embedded devices up to cloud or backend systems.
• A track record of shipping at more than one layer, from hardware-adjacent code to services and databases.

Deep experience with cloud infrastructure, databases, or backend services at scale.

Comfort owning ambiguous, cross-cutting problems end-to-end.

Background in automotive, aerospace, defense, robotics, or energy.

This position is an onsite role based in Chariot Defense's San Bruno, CA, office.

Willingness to support 10% travel, domestically and internationally, as well as work extended and weekend hours, when necessary.

Compensation packages also include early-stage equity and access to company-sponsored benefit plans.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Any unsolicited resumes/candidate profiles submitted through our website or to personal email accounts of employees of Chariot Defense are considered property of Chariot Defense and are not subject to payment of agency fees.