Senior Backend Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

HavocAI is a leader in all-domain collaborative autonomy, providing software-defined hardware for military and commercial-grade autonomous systems. They are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to develop scalable, high-performance backend systems for their autonomous platforms, focusing on architecture, design, and collaboration with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities:

• Drive execution and technical excellence across backend projects
• Set engineering standards, conduct code reviews, and guide architectural decisions
• Contribute to backend roadmap and delivery in partnership with product and engineering leadership
• Foster a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement
• Design, build, and maintain scalable, highly concurrent backend services in Go
• Architect distributed systems that support high throughput, reliability, and real-time operations
• Define service boundaries, APIs, and data models across systems
• Design services for high availability and fault tolerance across availability zones
• Evolve singleton services into multi-zone, distributed deployments
• Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and resilience
• Identify and resolve bottlenecks in distributed systems and concurrency-heavy workloads
• Ensure systems meet high standards for uptime and operational reliability
• Improve observability, maintainability, and operational readiness of backend services
• Partner with frontend, platform, autonomy, and embedded teams to integrate services across applications and devices
• Support end-to-end system design from edge devices to cloud infrastructure
• Contribute to system-level architecture across the stack
• Help align backend capabilities with product, platform, and mission needs
• Enforce secure development practices across backend systems
• Maintain high standards for code quality, testing, documentation, and reliability
• Support technical reviews, design discussions, and production readiness efforts
• Build systems with security, scalability, and long-term maintainability in mind

Requirements:

• 6+ years of experience in backend engineering, distributed systems engineering, or related software engineering roles
• Strong expertise in Go and building highly concurrent systems
• Experience designing and operating highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems at scale
• Experience with consensus and coordination primitives, such as etcd, Raft, leader election, or similar patterns for multi-zone deployments
• Strong API design and system architecture skills
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized environments
• Deep understanding of performance optimization, data structures, and system design
• Ability to drive projects from concept through production
• Strong technical judgment and ability to operate independently in fast-moving environments
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance
• Experience with IoT, robotics, autonomous systems, or distributed hardware systems
• Strong networking fundamentals and debugging experience
• Experience with AWS or cloud-based infrastructure
• Familiarity with embedded systems or hardware integration
• Experience supporting mission-critical, real-world deployed systems
• Experience working in small, fast-moving engineering teams or high-growth technology companies
• Active or prior security clearance