Senior Staff Software Engineer

About Forterra

At Forterra, we are unleashing autonomy at scale to transform the battlefield. Our mission is to build the foundational platforms that enable an intelligent ecosystem to coordinate, adapt, and execute with speed and precision even in the uncertainty and disruption of modern conflict. In an era marked by rapid technological change and evolving threats, we design for flexibility, survivability, and operational dominance.

Forterra delivers weapons, sensors, and battlefield effects through integrated autonomous networks reaching operational areas faster, safer, and without placing human lives at risk. Our systems operate with distributed control, dynamic routing, and real-time responsiveness, enabling sustained advantage across complex mission environments.

About the role

We are seeking a hands-on Senior Staff Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for the software that powers communications across distributed systems. This role sits at the intersection of software and network engineering. You will set multi-year technical direction, remain close to implementation, and serve as a senior technical authority for resilient, software defined communications in contested environments. Success requires exceptional software engineering depth, deep network engineering expertise, and the ability to invent, build, and validate new networking technology rather than merely configuring existing systems.

What you'll do

• Contribute to communications architecture and technical strategy across applications, control planes, network services, and edge systems.
• Design and build new networking software for routing, link management, failover, and observability.
• Use AI agents extensively to develop production code, create and run tests, and analyze results, with human review and traceable, reproducible evidence.
• Translate mission needs into hardware and software requirements, protocols, and measurable safety, security, and reliability criteria.
• Model and simulate network behavior under degraded or contested conditions to inform design decisions.
• Define automated verification at the component, system, and field levels for new communications technology.
• Diagnose field incidents across applications, Linux systems, networks, and communications hardware, then drive fixes into the product.
• Lead design reviews, document architecture decisions, set engineering standards, and mentor engineers across teams.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including cross-team technical leadership and mentoring senior engineers.
• Expertise in C++, Rust, Go, or another systems language, plus proficiency in Python or a comparable automation language.
• Deep Linux systems development experience, including concurrency and inter-process communication.
• Strong network engineering expertise in IP routing, TCP/UDP, and the Linux network stack.
• Experience designing and building networking software for distributed systems over unreliable, high- latency, or low-bandwidth links.
• Experience delivering production software from design through testing, deployment, and support.
• Troubleshooting across software, hardware, and networks, including packet analysis with tcpdump and Wireshark.
• Ability to obtain a Secret level clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building communications software for wired, wireless, satellite, and cloud environments.
• Experience implementing dynamic routing, quality of service, software defined networking, or overlays.
• Experience integrating radios, modems, or satellite terminals into communications systems.
• Knowledge of RF fundamentals, spectrum, and licensing constraints.
• Knowledge of cybersecurity principles, including identity, encryption, and network access controls.

US Salary Range
 $195,000 - $230,000

The salary range for this role is an estimate and is based on a wide variety of compensation factors. The salary offered to candidates will vary based on a variety of factors including (but not limited to) relevant work experience, education, specialized training, critical expertise, training, and more. Equity in Forterra is included in most of our full-time, high-demand roles and is therefore considered part of Forterra’s overall compensation package. In addition to base salary and equity, Forterra offers competitive benefits for full-time employees including:

• Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.  
• Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
• Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
• A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption. 
• A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
• Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires. 
• 401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.

Your recruiter will be able to share more information about our salary and benefits offering during the hiring process.

CLEARANCE ELIGIBILITY - This position may require eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. For more information about U.S. Security Clearances: click here.   

Forterra is an equal-opportunity employer, providing and promoting equal employment opportunity in all personnel practices. Forterrans are unique, talented individuals who are united through a shared passion to deliver autonomous systems that enable national resilience and a robust supply chain.  

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any factor, including veteran and disability status, and criminal history, in accordance with applicable local, state, and federal laws.

Forterra is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Please let your recruiter know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process.

To see Forterra’s candidate data privacy policy, please visit Forterra Legal | Job Applicant Privacy Notice.