Software Engineer, Rust

About the role

Helsing develops artificial intelligence-enabled capabilities to protect and defend democracies. We build Altra, an AI-powered drone software platform, and HX-2, our autonomous drone. We are growing our US operations, cultivating an ambitious and committed team of mission-driven professionals to apply their skills to solve challenging problems. You will work on Altra, Helsing's drone software platform, primarily written in Rust. You will design and build systems-level software that powers autonomous capabilities in challenging operational environments. You don't need to be a drone expert - but you should be a strong systems programmer who thrives in low-latency, high-reliability environments and is excited to apply those skills to a mission-critical product. The day-to-day Designing, building, and maintaining Rust services across the Altra platform Collaborating with ML engineers to integrate AI/ML pipelines into the broader system Working across the stack, from networking and protocol implementation to application-level services Contributing to increasingly advanced autonomy features Developing and testing software using simulation environments Writing software that must perform reliably on resource-constrained platforms under real-world constraints You should apply if you Have 5+ years of experience in systems-level software engineering Have a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field Are proficient in Rust, or have strong experience in C++ or another systems-level compiled language with a willingness to work in Rust daily Have experience building distributed systems, particularly in unreliable or constrained network environments Have worked with real-time or low-latency systems where performance and reliability are critical Have experience with at least one or two areas relevant to our stack: video streaming, pub/sub messaging, sensor data processing, embedded systems, protocol design, or robotics Have designed or built systems that interface with AI/ML pipelines - streaming data to models, handling inference outputs, managing pipeline orchestration Are familiar with Python, particularly for interfacing with ML/AI components Are a U.S. citizen eligible to obtain a security clearance

Requirements

• Direct experience with Rust in production systems
• Background in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or drone systems
• Experience with sensor fusion or multi-sensor data processing
• Familiarity with swarming, multi-agent systems, or decentralized coordination algorithms
• Experience with constrained or embedded platforms
• Familiarity with Nix or NixOS for reproducible builds and development environments
• Experience with SITL/HITL (Software/Hardware-In-The-Loop) simulation and testing frameworks for autonomous systems
• Experience with RF communications, telemetry, or datalink systems
• Background in defense or national security
• Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields
• Helsing's work is important. You'll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns
• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world
• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts

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