Senior Software Engineer — Maritime Optimization

Sofar Ocean is hiring a Senior Software Engineer to develop maritime route optimization, vessel performance modeling, and voyage analysis capabilities for U.S. Government and defense customers. The role involves improving optimization algorithms, models, simulation tools, and software that produces clear, explainable route recommendations.

Responsibilities:

• This is a hands-on software engineering role working directly on the software that models vessel performance and evaluates candidate maritime routes
• Depending on the problem, you may be refining optimization algorithms, translating vessel performance and fuel-consumption models into software, building simulation and evaluation tooling, or improving how route recommendations are scored and explained
• Maritime voyage optimization and route evaluation
• Vessel performance and fuel-consumption modeling across varying operating and environmental conditions
• Voyage constraints, transit time, fuel efficiency, and operational considerations
• Optimization algorithms and the software that supports them
• Simulation and evaluation capabilities used to understand optimizer behavior and route quality
• Clear, explainable results that allow users to understand and evaluate optimization recommendations
• You’ll contribute to both existing Sofar technology and new software developed for government maritime applications as these capabilities evolve
• You’ll collaborate with engineers, product experts, and maritime domain specialists to translate those real-world problems into practical software solutions
• Your work will focus on the core engineering behind voyage analysis and optimization — improving models, algorithms, simulation capabilities, and the software that connects them — with the goal of producing recommendations that are useful, understandable, and defensible
• Our optimization, modeling, and simulation software includes Rust and Python. You may work across both high- and low-level languages while contributing to algorithms, models, services, APIs, testing, and related software components

Requirements:

• U.S. citizenship is required for this position
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience contributing to production software
• Experience with Python and/or a compiled language such as Rust, C++, C, or similar
• Comfortable working with algorithms, data structures, and computational problems
• Ability to translate domain or mathematical concepts into maintainable, testable software
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative mindset when working across engineering and domain disciplines
• Comfortable working on software supporting U.S. Government and Department of Defense customers
• A degree in physics or a related technical field
• Experience developing optimization, modeling, or simulation software for real-world systems
• Maritime or naval domain experience
• Previous experience supporting U.S. Government or Department of Defense customers
• A personal connection to or passion for the oceans!