Senior Software Engineer
Scout AI
Senior Software Engineer
Scout AI
Develops autonomous warfare AI foundation model
The future of defense will be decided by those who field intelligent machines at scale. At Scout AI, we’re developing Fury, the first robotic foundation model for defense, to give U.S. forces overwhelming, adaptable, and autonomous power across every domain. Fury enables human operators to command fleets of robots through natural language, and empowers those machines to sense, decide, and act together as one. This mission will ask everything of us: urgency, precision, and relentless work.
The Role
We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer who treats the code itself as the product. You’ll join the core software team at Scout AI and work across the systems Fury runs on: the onboard C++ code and core libraries, the cloud infrastructure that trains and evaluates the model, and the simulation and evals framework that tells us whether any of it works.
A lot of this job is hardening. As our platform rapidly scales, our senior engineers actively drive architectural stewardship - continually refining abstractions, hardening core systems, and evolving our software foundation to support our accelerated growth. We want someone who can take that on: read a large codebase, understand it, spot the anti-patterns, and restructure it well.
The same person should be comfortable building the test and validation systems that let the rest of the team move faster. We aren’t hiring for one narrow specialty. Depending on where you’re strongest, you might spend most of your time onboard C++, in GPU job infrastructure and cloud services, or in simulation and evaluation tooling. What’s common across all of it is a background building frameworks and libraries that other systems depend on, rather than applications on top of someone else’s framework. We use AI coding tools and expect you to as well, but we think of them as a multiplier on skills you already have. You should be able to write, explain, and debug your own code without them.
We’re a startup. You’ll be moving fast, context-switching daily, and helping define the culture and process as we go. This is a rare opportunity to come in early and architect the future of defense.
Responsibilities
Develop and maintain onboard C++ software and core system libraries
Build scalable, low-latency C++ and Python infrastructure for ML workloads
Design cloud systems for data storage and GPU job scheduling
Build simulation and evaluation pipelines, including synthetic agents, rendering tools, and scenario suites
Create evaluation criteria and internal tooling to analyze and compare software release builds
Refactor existing codebases to eliminate anti-patterns and improve system architecture
Construct data pipelines for sensor calibration and 3D reconstruction workflows
Implement automated test and validation frameworks across subsystem engineering teams
Qualification
Proficient in C++ or Python (either is fine) for core systems, simulation, evaluation, and tooling work
Demonstrated experience navigating, auditing, and refactoring large codebases
Track record of building shared software frameworks or underlying libraries
Ability to write, debug, and explain complex code independently without relying on AI tools
Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
Passion about defense of the United States and its allies
May be expected to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Nice to Have
Cloud and infrastructure experience (GPU job scheduling, service deployment)
Simulation or evals background
Calibration or 3D reconstruction experience
Edge or embedded hardware familiarity
Why Join Scout
Work on the world’s most important frontier, ensuring U.S. and allied dominance in the age of intelligent machines
Be a core part of a team building the first defense-specific robotic foundation model
Collaborate with some of the top engineers in autonomy, AI, and national security
See your work deployed on real systems
Help define the future of intelligent defense systems
Backed by Draper Associates, Booz Allen Ventures, and other top investors
Benefits
Competitive Cash Compensation
Meaningful equity
Premium medical, dental, and vision plans with $0 paycheck contribution
Competitive PTO and company holiday calendar
Catered lunch daily and fully stocked kitchen
EV charging
Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility)
Scout AI is a frontier AI lab in Sunnyvale that builds military AI systems for unmanned warfare. Its main product is Fury, a Vision-Language-Action foundation model that converts a commander's intent into coordinated actions by autonomous robots across air, land, sea, and space at the tactical edge. The system relies on AI reasoning to plan and orchestrate how different robots work together, rather than making hardware. It uses an accompanying C2-based orchestrator called Ox to manage and coordinate autonomous agents during missions. Scout AI has demonstrated end-to-end autonomous strike missions and has secured government contracts, seed funding, and a large Series A round to grow its foundational military AI and multi-agent collaboration. The company positions itself apart from competitors by focusing on the AI reasoning layer and cross-domain agent coordination rather than manufacturing hardware, aiming to scale reliable, multi-robot collaboration in defense scenarios.
Explore more opportunities at Scout AI