Senior Software Engineer (Backend)
CHAOS Industries
$140,000 - $240,000 / year
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Description
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, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.
The Role
You'll join a small, highly collaborative team in San Francisco building the software behind some of the world's most advanced radar systems.
Working alongside software, hardware, and systems engineers, and the teams who take these systems into the field, you'll design the backend services and data pipelines that turn raw sensor data into decisions people can act on.
We're looking for builders who learn quickly and enjoy hard distributed systems and real-time data problems.
What You'll Build
- Edge-to-Cloud Data Delivery - robust, low-latency systems that move sensor data from radars in the field, often over constrained bandwidth, to the services and operators that depend on it.
- Backend Services - high-performance Python (FastAPI) services that ingest, process, and distribute real-time sensor data reliably and securely at scale.
- Live and Replay Data - the streaming, storage, and replay of detections, tracks, and telemetry that power high-speed live views and playback of 3D geospatial data fused from multiple sensors.
- Fleet Orchestration - the coordination and decision-making layer that optimizes how a growing fleet of sensors operates as conditions in the field change.
- Platform Architecture - help shape the technical direction of the platform, making architectural decisions that support new capabilities, increasing scale, and long-term maintainability.
What We're Looking For
We're looking for exceptional software engineers who are excited by hard technical problems and building systems that matter. Beyond our core stack, we care more about strong engineering fundamentals, curiosity, and the ability to learn quickly than about any specific technology.
You'll thrive in this role if you:
- Have strong production experience building backend services in Python (FastAPI or similar).
- Have built real-time or streaming data systems - message queues, WebSockets, time-series data - and enjoy hard distributed systems problems.
- Have owned a production system end to end - designed it, shipped it, and fixed it when it broke.
- Are eager to learn new technologies and adapt to new technical domains.
- Care deeply about reliability, security, and scalability.
- Get real leverage from AI coding tools, with a considered view on what to delegate to them and what not to.
- Communicate well and enjoy collaborating across teams.
Experience in any of the following is a plus:
- Building geospatial or 3D data visualizations in TypeScript and React.
- Edge computing, or moving data reliably over constrained or unreliable networks.
- Azure or another major cloud platform.
- Hardware, sensors, robotics, telemetry, or defense systems.
Requirements
- Must be a U.S. Person (U.S. citizen or permanent resident), as required for access to controlled technology.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance.
- Based in, or willing to relocate to, the San Francisco Bay Area. This role is onsite in our SF office.
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: 250 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.
Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.
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Benefits
- health insurance
- 401(k)
- paid time off
- stock options
- life insurance
About this role
CHAOS Industries is building the cloud platform that powers advanced radar systems for defense and commercial operators. As a Backend Software Engineer, you'd join a small, collaborative team owning the secure, scalable infrastructure that ingests, processes, and delivers mission-critical sensor data in real time. This is a high-ownership role where you'll design and operate production systems, influence platform architecture, and work directly with software, hardware, and systems engineers to deliver end-to-end capabilities that perform under demanding conditions.
The work spans cloud infrastructure on Azure, high-performance backend services, infrastructure-as-code automation, and operational reliability at scale. You'll help define the technical direction of a rapidly evolving platform while taking responsibility for observability, security, and resilience. The role suits engineers who enjoy solving hard distributed systems problems, care about operational excellence, and are motivated by building technology with real-world impact. Strong fundamentals matter more than specific technology experience; the company values curiosity and the ability to learn quickly across new domains.
This is an in-office role in San Francisco with a base salary of $130,000–$220,000, plus stock options, full company-paid health benefits, and perks including free daily lunch and unlimited PTO. You must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident and able to obtain a security clearance.
How this employer is doing
solid
- Hiring Mentioned
- Recent Acquisition
- Recently Raised Funding
In the news
CHAOS Industries Hires Brownstein Hyatt for Defense Lobbying, legis1.com
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Pay for this role
$140,000 to $240,000 per year
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