Principal Software Engineer

CHAOS Inc. is a global technology company delivering next-generation capabilities to the defense and critical industrial sectors. Founded in 2022 by a seasoned leadership team, CHAOS has quickly become the place where world-class multi-disciplinary engineers come to build mission-critical technologies. CHAOS has a mission-focused culture, dedicated to solving the toughest technical challenges. Its unique agile engineering approach enables rapid prototyping, while deep partnerships with defense and industry ensure real-world solutions.

Role Overview:

CHAOS is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Software Engineer to join our team supporting our product engineering. This is a highly-collaborative role which will allow you to wear multiple hats and work very closely with our product. As a member of our engineering team, you also have the opportunity to expand your skillset across our product line. 

Responsibilities:

• Develop software that runs the CHAOS products – everything from the backend endpoints to the product assembly, operation, analysis, and testing
• As an early engineer on a growing team, define major parts of our data and backend architecture, including choice of frameworks and systems
• Build and maintain our data infrastructure, real-time data processing, data transportation, and some of the backend services
• Mentor other engineers as the team grows, and work with engineering leadership to define longer term roadmaps
• Support and collaborate with system, software, and hardware engineers
• Work 3+ days per week out of our office in San Francisco (Market Street)

Minimum Requirements:

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience in professional, object-oriented software development
• Experience with Python, SQL data warehouses, and no-SQL systems
• Experiencing building, testing, and supporting major systems in production

Preferred Requirements:

• Development experience in Ground or Airborne Sensors (Radars, EO/IR, EW, etc.)
• Data Engineering/Big Data analysis
• High-bandwidth networking
• Modeling & Simulation, including hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop testbeds for algorithm verification
• Experience designing algorithms for RF/IQ, target detection, and tracking
• Familiarity with Agile lifecycle processes including Scrum, Continuous Integration, and Test Driven Development Methodologies
• Experience with Software Defined Radios (e.g. Ettus)
• Experience with 2D and 3D Visualization ideally in defense use cases
• Experience with SW development tools enforcing SW-development best practices (e.g. linting, code coverage, code quality/security scanning, doc gen, etc.)
• Experience with SW Design, code, integration, and test of production systems
• Experience with git
• Familiarity with Azure or other cloud platforms
• Experience with additional languages such as Rust, NodeJS, Java, Bash, etc.
• Work with the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware (e.g. computers, switches, Software-Defined Radios, etc.)

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Your medical, dental and vision benefits will be 100% paid for by the company
• Additional benefits: life, FSA, HSA, 401k (+ Company match), and more
• Our Perks: free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
• Compensation Components: competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance + (coming soon!) annual bonuses
• Company Size: 150 employees and counting!
• More About Us: We're building the next generation of aerospace, defense and critical industry technologies with a seasoned team of mission-focused individuals. We were founded in June 2022 and our goal is to become the platform where world-class engineers come to solve critical, real-world problems. We use agile engineering approaches which enable rapid prototyping, deep partnerships with the defense industry ensuring real-world application, and our newly-invented Coherence platform (through which we’ve made a fundamental breakthrough) improves sensor performance and decision-making in real-time. As of April 2025 we have raised $490M (including a $275M Series C at a $2B valuation) from some of the most prominent VC funds and investors including Accel, NEA, 8VC, and Valar. With a managing team that includes Epirus’ founding members (responsible for building a $1.5B company from scratch) + key drivers from Palantir (instrumental in Palantir’s growth to $1B in revenue), we are well-positioned to become one of the fastest growing companies to date!