Staff Software Engineer

WHO WE ARE Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards.  As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously.  We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications.  THE ROLE At Helsing, our engineering culture is defined by technical impact, first-principles thinking, and high-agency execution. We are looking for a hands-on Staff Software Engineer to serve as a primary technical anchor, driving architectural decisions and shipping code across our backend systems. Designed for a builder who thrives on complexity and wants to remain close to the metal, you will have the autonomy to own projects from zero to one prototyping through to deploying resilient software on physical hardware. Your impact is measured by your ability to design robust systems, write performance-optimised code, and act as a technical multiplier for our teams. You will architect solutions across highly resilient distributed systems built for network partitions, resource-constrained embedded hardware, secure networking protocols, and high-performance machine learning inference pipelines directly at the tactical edge. THE DAY-TO-DAY - Lead the review of complex code contributions, design proposals, and technical RFCs from colleagues. At Helsing we strongly believe that unblocking others and mentoring is the highest-leverage work you can do. - Architect, propose, and implement major new features, capabilities, algorithms, infrastructure, or full products across our stack. We expect our engineers to look beyond their immediate team, identify systemic opportunities, and champion the solutions. - Act as a key translator between engineering and the broader business. You will regularly interface with product managers, programme leads, and customers to translate deep technical designs and constraints into clear, actionable insights for non-technical stakeholders who depend on our technologies. - Actively mentor engineers, find mentees, and help drive and scale our technical interviewing pipeline. You will be a key driver in fostering, growing, and scaling the engineering organisation. - Share your extensive experience and technical know-how with other Helsingers. We host tech talks, run "let’s learn together" groups, and host topical office hours (e.g., on Rust) to help the entire engineering team get better with time. - Maintain and evolve our existing software stack, partnering with internal and external stakeholders to diagnose complex system issues, optimise operational reliability and performance, and systematically address technical debt. Our stack is a mix of Rust and Python, with Python mainly living in the ML-heavy sections. - Design and develop robust test architectures and benchmarks, both at the micro and macro level. We operate in a domain where robustness is of the utmost importance, and building highly reliable, performance-tested systems is key to achieving that. - Present and celebrate your work at our weekly demo sessions. We host demo sessions that allow early feedback, celebration of progress, and a better shared understanding of everything that goes on at Helsing.  YOU SHOULD APPLY IF YOU - Have a proven track record of writing highly legible, maintainable, and performance-optimised systems code. - Are a systems-level thinker capable of designing for the long term. You can ensure that a complex collection of independent, heterogeneous systems (including those outside your direct control) successfully integrate and function reliably end-to-end. - Communicate well in English, both verbally and in writing, with the ability to articulate complex architectural decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Thrive in a collaborative, low-ego environment, with extensive experience running pair programming and peer code reviews. - Are highly comfortable working asynchronously (writing robust PRs, leading design RFCs, and having discussions by email). - Have seasoned, senior-to-staff level backend development experience, with expert-level mastery in a systems language like Rust, Java, Go, or C++. - Are a natural multiplier, striving to constantly improve yourself, your peers, and the engineering culture around you. - Feel like ethical considerations are an inherent part of software engineering. Note: We operate at an intersection where women, as well as other minority groups, are systematically under-represented. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarised in a few bullet points. NICE TO HAVE - Production-grade Rust and Python specifically. - Container-based and cloud-native application architectures (e.g., Docker, Azure, AWS). - Metrics and observability tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK). - SQL and high-throughput streaming database systems. - Low-level routing protocols (e.g., IGP, BGP). - Cryptographic protocols (e.g., Signal, WireGuard). - Hardware interfaces (e.g., Arduino). - Robotics (e.g., control systems). - Production ML systems and model deployment. JOIN HELSING AND WORK WITH WORLD-LEADING EXPERTS IN THEIR FIELDS  - Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns.  - The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world.  - Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward.  - In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts.   - We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about.  WHAT WE OFFER - A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking - Competitive compensation and VSOP options - Relocation support - Social and education allowances - Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe - A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one  Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.