{"id":1577436,"url":"https://alion.io/job/swarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career","title":"Software Engineer, Real-Time Systems (Early Career)","company":{"id":3847913,"name":"Swarm","domain":"swarm.aero","url":"https://alion.io/company/swarm-7","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"junior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":170000,"max":220000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":220000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"OpenGL","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-28T17:16:11Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-28","last_verified_at":"2026-10-21T12:56:25Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":22,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":22},"description":"Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results.\nThe team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.\nLegion's Command & Control platform lets a single operator plan, direct, and execute missions across a networked swarm of heterogeneous aircraft, in real time, over intermittent comms, at a scale nobody else in the industry is attempting. That means distributed state under unreliable networks, dense telemetry moving fast enough to strain anything you've built before, and interfaces for a problem space that barely has prior art. You'll work across the stack, wherever the hard problem is that week.\nWHAT YOU'LL DO\nBuild and ship features in the C2 system that directs swarms of heterogeneous aircraft\n\nWork on systems that hold state and stay responsive when comms degrade or drop entirely\n\nMove between the interface layer and the services behind it, following the problem rather than a job description\n\nPrototype new ways to represent and control vehicle telemetry, sensor data, and scheduling\n\nTake features end to end, from a rough problem statement through design, implementation, and deployment\n\nShip early and often, backed by strong CI/CD, QA, and DevSecOps\n\nWHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR\nDegree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent self-taught depth\n\nReal strength in fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, concurrency, networking, systems\n\nEvidence you've built something hard because you wanted to. A renderer, an emulator, a game, a compiler, a multiplayer server, a robotics project, a serious open source contribution. We care more about what you've built than where you worked\n\nComfort writing code at more than one layer of the stack, and no strong attachment to staying at one\n\nWillingness to work on problems where the right answer isn't known yet, and to be wrong in public on the way to finding it\n\nWHAT SETS YOU APART\nCompetitive programming background (ICPC, IOI, Codeforces, USACO, Putnam)\n\nGame development, game jams, engine work, or simulation\n\nPerformance-sensitive work: profiling, frame budgets, memory pressure, running on constrained hardware\n\nReal-time or distributed systems experience: multiplayer netcode, streaming, pub/sub, robotics middleware\n\nGraphics: WebGL, OpenGL, Vulkan, shaders\n\nWorking fluency in Go, C++, or Rust\n\nFamiliarity with video streaming protocols or geospatial applications\n\nWHY THIS ROLE\nYou'll be one of the earliest engineers shaping how humans command autonomous systems at scale, work that's currently being defined in real time, by a small team, with your fingerprints on the architecture. If you want to build the future of human-swarm interaction rather than maintain someone else's, this is that seat.\nITAR requirement\nTo conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.\nSwarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.\nWhat We Offer\nMeaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company\n\nCompetitive base salary commensurate with experience\n\nMedical, dental, vision, and 401k\n\nPTO and paid sick leave\n\nMonthly wellness stipend\n\nDaily catered lunch (office)\n\nPaid parental leave\n\nDirect impact on a critical national security mission\n\nA world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems","description_format":"text","description_chars":4161,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Equity","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Drones & UAVs","Military Drones"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-01T10:51:08Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":59,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.788,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":22,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:late","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":220000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/swarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/swarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-21T13:17:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":18875,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3847913},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3847913"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fswarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fswarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fswarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/swarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fswarm-software-engineer-real-time-systems-early-career"}]}