Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Systems

Palantir Technologies
Seattle, WA2025-10-07Full-time

About the job

We are seeking an experienced Senior Software Engineer to join a newly-formed team focused on developing advanced autonomous systems for area defense. This role involves building state-of-the-art solutions combining sensors, effectors, and intelligent decision-making systems to protect civilian and military installations from a variety of threats, including drone attacks.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and optimize software for mission-critical autonomous systems using modern technologies and methodologies.

Develop algorithms to process data from heterogeneous sensors for real-time state estimation and threat detection.

Build AI-driven systems capable of assessing threats and rapidly making decisions to deploy responses to those threats.

Develop integrations with a range of sensors, effectors, and autonomous platforms.

Engineer scalable, reliable, and fail-safe systems capable of functioning in high-stakes environments.

Partner with multidisciplinary teams, including robotics experts, hardware engineers, and system integrators, to deliver integrated solutions.

Qualifications

Minimum

5+ years of professional software development experience

2+ years of experience contributing to the system design or architecture (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems

2+ years of experience as a mentor, tech lead or leading an engineering team

Strong proficiency in Rust, Python, or Java

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related fields

Active US Security clearance or eligibility and willingness to obtain a US Security clearance

Preferred

Proven experience in software development for autonomous systems, embedded systems, or robotics.

Knowledge of AI/ML, sensor processing, or swarm behaviors is highly desirable.

Ability to manage complexity, optimize for performance, and think critically under pressure.

Experience deploying and maintaining robust production systems.