Senior Software Engineer, Backend & Data

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with omniscient systems purpose-built for today’s realities. Designed and built by top U.S. military veterans and Silicon Valley innovators, CHAOS Industries’ products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. In a world where technological threats move at unprecedented speed, CHAOS Industries delivers advanced sensing and detection solutions that give the ultimate advantage: time.   

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised $1B in total funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and NEA. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com. 

The Role

We're looking for a software engineer to build the backend systems that power our sensor infrastructure — the services that ingest, process, and serve data from radar, RF, and other sensing systems at scale. You'll design and operate cloud-native systems on Azure, working alongside systems, hardware, and software engineers in a small team with high autonomy.

This is an early-stage role with outsized impact. You'll define architecture decisions, ship production code, and see your work protecting people's lives.

What You'll Do
- Design and build scalable backend services in Python that process and serve sensor data on Azure
- Architect cloud infrastructure for high-throughput, low-latency data pipelines
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines, testing infrastructure, and release processes
- Work directly with hardware and systems engineering teams to integrate software with physical sensor systems
- Define software architecture decisions as a foundational member of the team
- Mentor engineers as the team grows
- Travel periodically to other offices (LA, DC) and customer sites

Requirements
- 3+ years of professional software development experience
- Strong proficiency in Python
- Experience designing and operating scalable backend systems in cloud environments (Azure strongly preferred)
- Track record of building and supporting production systems — you've been on-call, debugged outages, and shipped under pressure
- Proficiency with modern engineering practices: git, unit testing, CI/CD, code review
- Must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen or permanent resident) — required for access to controlled technology
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance

Strongly Preferred
- Experience at a top-tier technology company building systems at scale
- Background building data-intensive pipelines, streaming architectures, or real-time systems
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code, containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and cloud-native architecture on Azure
- Interest in defense, aerospace, or national security technology

Nice to Have
- Active Secret or Top Secret clearance
- TypeScript/React frontend experience
- 2D/3D data visualization (mapping, geospatial, point clouds)
- Software Defined Radio or RF/IQ data processing experience
- Sensor development background (radars, EO/IR, EW, sensor fusion)
- Additional languages: Rust, Node.js, Java, Bash
- COTS hardware integration experience

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
• Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Team Growth: 200 employees and counting across 5 global offices

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

#LI-onsite