Lead Software Engineer (Python) - Simulation Intelligence

Anadyr Horizon is building the world’s first Simulation Intelligence platform, a new category of technology designed to model how governments, markets, institutions, and individuals behave under pressure. They are seeking an exceptional Lead Software Engineer (Python) to help architect and scale their core platform, owning major architectural decisions and modernizing complex simulation infrastructure.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the architecture and continued evolution of North Star’s backend platform
• Design, build, and maintain scalable Python services, REST APIs, distributed systems, and simulation infrastructure
• Modernize the existing simulation engine while continuing to ship meaningful production features
• Translate research prototypes, mathematical models, and experimental systems into reliable, maintainable production software
• Improve the reliability, scalability, performance, observability, and security of the company’s AWS infrastructure
• Establish engineering standards across architecture, testing, documentation, code quality, CI/CD, deployment, and monitoring
• Make thoughtful technical decisions that balance long-term architecture with the need to move quickly
• Remain highly hands-on by writing production code, reviewing pull requests, debugging systems, and solving complex technical problems
• Mentor engineers through technical guidance, thoughtful code reviews, and architectural leadership
• Work closely with the founders, research, product, and design teams to turn complex ideas into meaningful product capabilities
• Help recruit, onboard, and develop future members of Anadyr Horizon’s engineering organization
• Take ownership beyond a traditional job description by proactively identifying technical systems, processes, and areas that need improvement

Requirements:

• U.S. citizen currently residing in the United States
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Expert-level Python experience, including several years building and operating production backend systems
• Experience serving as a technical lead, lead engineer, staff engineer, engineering manager, or similar technical leadership role
• A track record of remaining hands-on with production code while leading technical projects or engineering teams
• Strong software architecture, systems design, and computer science fundamentals
• Experience designing and operating REST APIs, distributed systems, and scalable backend services
• Strong SQL, database design, and PostgreSQL experience
• Production experience with AWS and modern cloud infrastructure
• Experience with Docker, automated testing, CI/CD, observability, and production monitoring
• Experience owning meaningful architectural decisions across a platform, rather than only individual features or isolated services
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• High agency and the ability to operate effectively in an early-stage environment with ambiguity and limited structure
• Genuine interest in building a new category of technology and helping create an engineering organization from its earliest stages