{"id":4301465,"url":"https://alion.io/job/simspace-staff-software-engineer-ai-native-development","title":"Staff Software Engineer – AI-Native Development","company":{"id":5980,"name":"SimSpace","domain":"simspace.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/simspace","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":41,"computed_at":"2026-11-12T10:38:37Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":185000,"max":260000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":260000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Cyber Kill Chain","optional":false},{"name":"Kotlin","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"ArgoCD","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Git","optional":true},{"name":"GitHub","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"OpenAI Codex","optional":true},{"name":"Playwright","optional":true},{"name":"Progressive Delivery","optional":true},{"name":"Trunk-Based Development","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-13T22:46:41Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-13","last_verified_at":"2026-11-14T03:32:35Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"The weaponization of AI is driving a paradigm shift in the cyber security industry from proactive to preemptive security: clients must now invest more intelligence and effort in understanding their vulnerabilities before their adversaries do (Open AI). The only way to achieve this is to simulate future attack scenarios at scale, and to run them in high fidelity digital replicas of production environments (Gartner/Forrester). SimSpace serves as the AI Proving Grounds to generate hypersynthetic data which pressure tests controls, tools, teams, and agentic capabilities in full kill chain attacks hidden in realistic environmental traffic and patterns of life.\nFounded in 2015 by experts from U.S. Cyber Command and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the platform was initially conceived to assist in Offensive Cyber Operations (OCO), to quickly replicate target environments to conduct mission rehearsal of human operators and their tools to deny (disrupt, degrade, destroy) or deceive (manipulate or exfiltrate data) adversaries. The company has since expanded to serve over a dozen allied governments in OCO/DCO as well as critical infrastructure enterprises around the world. The company is actively investing in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East through direct sales and channel partners. SimSpace has launched the AI Proving Grounds Consortium, leading the revolution by creating an open platform for the InfoSec ecosystem to train, validate and operationalize their agentic capabilities before committing to production.\nWhy join SimSpace?\nWe are a team united by a shared purpose and four core values: Serve to Protect, Acquire Understanding, Teamwork without Borders, and Operate as Innovators. We value candid, constructive feedback and create opportunities for personal, professional, and financial growth. Our vision, “Defend the Free World,” drives our mission: “Defeat Any Adversary in Any Cyber Terrain at Machine Speed.”\nHow Do We Work?\nWe listen to customers and colleagues, challenge assumptions, and turn ideas into meaningful results. We expect everyone to embrace emerging technologies, simplify and automate work, and use AI to learn, solve problems, and help deliver quality with speed. We apply human judgment and take responsibility for outcomes. Whether remote or office-based, we collaborate across teams and time zones.\nWe invite you to apply today!\nAbout the Role\nSimSpace builds the environments where the world's leading organizations train, test, and operationalize their cyber capabilities with confidence. We want the engineering teams behind that platform to set the standard for building software in the age of AI, not catch up to it.\nAs a Staff Software Engineer, you'll be a senior technical leader on one of our engineering teams, with influence well beyond it-setting the standards for how teams build with AI, driving cross-team projects forward, and contributing directly to the code. You'll practice spec-driven development with AI agents yourself, show teams how to do the same, and partner deeply with Product Managers, UX Designers, QA, platform teams, and engineers across the organization.\nThis is a hands-on technical leadership role, not a people-management one, and it carries a high degree of agency. You'll work as a true partner to your Engineering Manager, with the latitude to act on what you see. We're looking for an experienced engineer who wants real ownership-of the technical direction, of the outcomes, and of how teams build in the age of AI.\nWhat You'll Do\nSet the Standard for AI-Native Development\nDefine and model how teams build software with AI-how work is specified, how agents are directed, and how AI-generated code is reviewed, tested, and owned.\n\nChampion spec-driven development: write clear specs, plans, and acceptance criteria up front, direct AI agents to implement against them, and help teams make it their default way of working.\n\nTurn what works into durable standards, playbooks, and templates that teams adopt because they make the work faster, not because they're mandated.\n\nEvaluate emerging AI tools and workflows pragmatically, adopting what improves delivery and retiring what doesn't.\n\nCreate documentation, examples, and internal talks that help engineers across the organization adopt AI-native workflows effectively.\n\nDrive Projects Forward Across the Organization\nLead complex, cross-team initiatives end to end-from problem framing and specification through architecture, delivery, and rollout.\n\nBuild alignment across Product, Engineering, QA, and platform teams, and resolve cross-team technical dependencies directly rather than escalating them by default.\n\nSpot stalled or drifting work early, unblock it, and make the hard technical calls needed to land it.\n\nKeep stakeholders informed of progress, risks, and trade-offs before they have to ask.\n\nRaise Quality & Accelerate Delivery\nDrive the maturity of end-to-end testing in CI/CD pipelines so faster, AI-assisted delivery never comes at the cost of quality.\n\nHelp teams ship small changes frequently and with confidence, backed by fast feedback loops and quality gates they trust.\n\nFind where AI agents-including headless agents running in CI/CD or on event triggers-can take toil off teams, and build or adopt them with the guardrails that make their output trustworthy.\n\nSet and uphold standards for code health, testing, and documentation-including for AI-generated code-and model them in your own code reviews.\n\nPartner with Your Engineering Manager\nAct as the technical counterpart to your Engineering Manager, owning the team's technical direction and execution so they can focus on team health and org-wide initiatives.\n\nBreak large efforts into clear, incremental deliverables, sequence the work, and keep delivery predictable.\n\nBring risks forward early with a proposed path, not just a problem.\n\nMentor engineers through code reviews, pairing, and design walkthroughs, growing their technical judgment and their fluency with AI-native workflows.\n\nWhat You Bring\nRequired Qualifications\n8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including a track record of leading technical projects end to end across teams.\n\nAn AI-forward or AI-native way of working: you use AI coding agents daily, direct them effectively, and can show how they've changed the way you and your teams deliver.\n\nFamiliarity with spec-driven development using AI agents-writing specs, plans, and acceptance criteria that agents implement and reviewers verify against.\n\nDemonstrated ability to set and raise engineering standards that multiple teams adopt.\n\nProven cross-organization collaboration, driving shared initiatives to completion with Product, QA, platform teams, and engineers on other teams.\n\nDeep, hands-on software engineering expertise-ideally in TypeScript, React, or Kotlin-sufficient to set architectural direction, make hard technical calls, and review AI-generated code critically.\n\nStrong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain trade-offs to non-engineering partners.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience building headless coding agents that run without an IDE or a human at the keyboard-in CI/CD pipelines, on event triggers, or as background workers.\n\nExperience driving the maturity of end-to-end testing in CI/CD pipelines, making suites fast, reliable, and trusted enough to gate a release.\n\nA track record of moving fast with teams: small batches, short feedback loops, and frequent releases without lowering the quality bar.\n\nExperience with the practices that make speed safe, such as trunk-based development, feature flags, progressive delivery, and fast rollback.\n\nWho You Are\nYou have high agency: you see what needs to happen and make it happen, without waiting for a ticket, a meeting, or permission.\n\nYou're AI-native by instinct: you direct agents with clear specs and verify their output with the same rigor you'd apply to your own code.\n\nYou move fast and bring teams with you, preferring momentum and iteration over big-bang plans.\n\nYou make the people around you more effective, and you close loops without being chased.\n\nYou set the bar through systems and standards, not heroics.\n\nYou're comfortable leading initiatives end to end without formal authority, influencing through craft and collaboration.\n\nYou're ambitious about what AI can do, but realistic when it comes to trade-offs.\n\nWhy This Role Matters\nAI is changing how software gets built, and the teams that learn to direct it well-specifying clearly, verifying rigorously, and shipping in fast, safe increments-will set the pace. As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll define what that looks like at SimSpace: the standards, workflows, and quality gates teams build on, and the cross-team momentum that turns plans into shipped outcomes. By owning the technical side of your team, you also free your Engineering Manager to invest in team health and org-wide initiatives-so your impact compounds across people, teams, and product.\nOur Tech Stack Includes\nCodex, TypeScript, React, Kotlin, Git/GitHub, Docker, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, and Playwright.\nWe’re proud to offer a competitive and comprehensive package designed to support your well-being, growth, and success:\nCompensation. Base salary range: $180,000 - $260,000, reflecting our confidence in your expertise and impact, with the opportunity for annual bonuses tied to company performance and individual contributions.\n\nHealth & Wellness. Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits, plus savings plans-coverage starts on day one!\n\nMental Health Support. Access to company-paid counseling, coaching, and resources for you and your family through Spring Health.\n\nFinancial Well-Being. Plan for your future with a 401(k)-retirement savings plan featuring a company match.\n\nFlexible Time Off. Take the time you need with unlimited vacation and dedicated health & wellness days. SimSpace provides flexible solutions to meet the diverse work-life needs of team members.\n\nParental Leave. Paid leave plans to support you and your loved ones during life’s most important moments.\n\nOwnership Opportunities: Equity stock options at hire, with annual performance-based grants-become an invested stakeholder in our shared success.\n\nReferral Rewards: Earn $1,500-$3,500 for every qualified hire through our employee referral program.\n\nPeloton Interactive Wellness Program: Full- and partial- subsidized membership plans and equipment discounts to help you reach your personalized fitness goals.\n\nContinuous Learning: Access a LinkedIn Learning membership to prioritize your personal and professional development.\n\nSocial Connections: Monthly reimbursements for meaningful connections with teammates through our SocialSpace Community.\n\nExtra Perks: Legal plan coverage, pet insurance, wellness reimbursements, and more to simplify life’s details.\n\nSimSpace is an Equal Opportunity Employer:\nIn compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.\nSimSpace is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients.\nResearch shows that women and people from underrepresented groups only apply to jobs if they meet all of the qualifications. However, no one ever meets 100% of the qualifications. SimSpace encourages you to break that statistic and to apply. 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