Senior Backend Software Engineer

About the role

Collaborative autonomy is how self-tasking teams of machines will solve hard human problems, and HavocAI is an unquestioned leader in collaborative autonomy. We set the standard for autonomous surface vessels for a wide range of defense and commercial maritime missions. Success requires us to grow quickly, and we're looking for teammates who are passionate about solving hard problems, about pushing the envelope, and about preventing conflict and saving lives. Ambition is welcome to apply within. HavocAI is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to drive the development of scalable, high-performance backend systems that power our autonomous platforms. In this role, you will be a senior individual contributor, hands-on across both architecture and development. You will design and build highly concurrent, distributed systems in Go, help shape technical direction, and ensure our backend services are reliable, secure, and performant. You will work closely with frontend, platform, autonomy, and embedded teams to deliver systems that operate reliably in real-world, mission-critical environments. This role is ideal for someone who combines deep backend expertise with strong technical judgment and thrives in fast-paced, high-ownership environments.

Responsibilities

• Technical Ownership
• Drive execution and technical excellence across backend projects
• Set engineering standards, conduct code reviews, and guide architectural decisions
• Contribute to the backend roadmap and delivery planning in partnership with product and engineering leadership
• Foster a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement
• Backend Architecture & Development
• Design, build, and maintain scalable, highly concurrent backend services in Go
• Architect distributed systems that support high throughput, reliability, and real-time operations
• Define service boundaries, APIs, and data models across systems
• Build services that support autonomy workflows, platform capabilities, and real-world deployments
• System Performance & Reliability
• Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and resilience
• Identify and resolve bottlenecks in distributed systems and concurrency-heavy workloads
• Ensure systems meet high standards for uptime and operational reliability
• Improve maintainability, observability, and production readiness across backend services
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Partner with frontend, platform, autonomy, and embedded teams to integrate services across applications and devices
• Support end-to-end system design from edge devices to cloud infrastructure
• Contribute to system-level architecture across the stack
• Translate product and technical requirements into reliable backend systems
• Security & Best Practices
• Enforce secure development practices across backend systems
• Maintain high standards for code quality, testing, and documentation
• Participate in design reviews and help improve backend engineering practices
• Build systems with reliability, security, and maintainability in mind from the start

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience in backend engineering, distributed systems engineering, or related software engineering roles
• Strong expertise in Go and building highly concurrent systems
• Experience designing and operating distributed systems at scale
• Strong API design and system architecture skills
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized environments
• Deep understanding of performance optimization, data structures, networking, and system design
• Ability to drive projects from concept through production
• Strong communication, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Experience in IoT, robotics, autonomy, or distributed hardware systems
• Strong networking fundamentals and debugging experience
• Experience with AWS or cloud-based infrastructure
• Familiarity with embedded systems or hardware integration
• Experience with observability, monitoring, and production operations
• Experience working in defense technology, robotics, maritime, or mission-critical software environments
• What Success Looks Like in 12 Months
• Consistent, reliable delivery of high-quality backend systems
• Scalable backend systems supporting real-world autonomous platform deployments
• Clear architectural standards and well-defined service boundaries
• Improved system performance, reliability, observability, and maintainability
• Strong cross-team alignment across platform, autonomy, embedded, frontend, and product teams
• Backend services that are secure, production-ready, and easy for other teams to build on

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