Modernization Engineer

This is an on-site opportunity in DC

Spear AI is seeking an experienced Software Engineer to lead the design, development, and modernization of the combat systems for US Nuclear Submarines. This role combines cutting-edge technology innovation with mission-critical engineering to bring new operational capabilities while ensuring seamless integration with existing systems.

The ideal candidate has worked in large legacy systems and has a passion for modernizing code. They enjoy working in small teams in disconnected environments. They MUST have an affinity for working with new/improved technologies and not be resistant to change.

Candidates with a GitHub (or other open-source) profile stand out because we can check their work for:

- Attention to detail

- Code quality

- Experimentation with new technologies

The candidate must be willing to obtain a US government Secret security clearance. Once a Secret clearance has been obtained, the candidate has the option of requesting a Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI). For information on obtaining a Secret security clearance please see this link. Preference will be given for candidates already possessing a Secret security clearance. While some activities for this job will be performed on site, we expect most of the work to be performed at a home office that can meet heightened security requirements.

Programming (Essential)

• Proficiency in low-level languages like C/C++ (Rust and Zig is an awesome plus)

  Proficiency in high-level languages like Python / mypy (TypeScript is a plus)

  Data structures and algorithms

  Design patterns

  Functional programming

  Object-oriented programming

  Complexity analysis (Big O notation)

  Memory safety and thread safety

  Expert at debugging (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.)

• Code quality

  Type checking

  Linting and formatting (Clang, Ruff, etc.)

  Assertions

  Unit and property-based testing

  Code coverage

  Integration testing

  End-to-end testing

  Profiling (metrics, tracing, etc.)

  Benchmarking

  Load and stress testing

• Version control (Monorepos)

  Documentation (README, comments, Architecture Decision Records)

  CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, etc.)

  Experience reviewing pull requests (providing and receiving feedback)

  Package management (Cargo, PyPI) - Semantic versioning

  Build systems (CMake, Meson, etc.)

  Artifact management (Cargo, PyPI, NPM)

  Containerization (Docker / Docker Compose)

  Cloud providers (AWS - Preferred, Bonus for Azure and GCP)

• Experience hosting LLM inference servers

  Familiar with major LLM frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc.)

  Experience with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

  Knowledge of vector databases and similarity search

  Text embedding models and techniques

  Prompt engineering and chain-of-thought reasoning

  Token optimization and context window management

  Model quantization and optimization

• Linux

  Process management and scheduling

  Memory management (virtual memory, paging)

  File systems and I/O

  Network stack and sockets

  Compiler optimizations

  Static/dynamic libraries

  Dynamic linking and loading

  System calls and ABI stability

  CPU cache optimization

$150,000 - $250,000 a year

Salary will be based on experience and fit for the role.

We look forward to having you join our growing team as we bring commercial technology to the hardest problems within the Department of Defense!