Watchtower Labs · 14 hours ago
Staff Software Engineer
Bellevue, WA
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/StaffWatchtower Labs is focused on building simulation and autonomy infrastructure that supports critical outcomes for US defense. The Staff Software Engineer will own core systems behind a multi-agent simulation engine, design primitives, build and run distributed services, and drive performance in a high-stakes environment.
Computer Software
No H1B
Security Clearance RequiredU.S. Citizen Only
Responsibilities
Design primitives: orchestration, state, time, execution models, and scaling strategy
Build and run distributed services that must be reliable, observable, and secure
Drive performance until it hurts: profiling, contention, memory, throughput, p99s
Build infrastructure that behaves under stress, not just in a demo
Make calls with incomplete info and be right often enough to move fast
Lead by doing: you’ll ship critical pieces yourself and pull others up with you
Qualification
Required
U.S. Citizenship required (DoD Clearance preferable)
Deep experience building real systems in production (distributed, performance-sensitive, mission-critical)
Comfort working across C#/.NET Core, Linux, Python (or equivalent mastery + fast learning)
Strong mental model of systems: concurrency, networking, data integrity, deploy/release, observability
Ability to thrive in-person with a high-output team and high standards
Architect-level judgment: you see failure modes before they happen
Relentless ownership: you fix what you touch, and you touch what matters
Grit: you don't get fragile when the system fights back
Curiosity: you chase first principles, not vibes
Competitive excellence: you care about being great, not merely 'done'
Benefits
The kind of problems that force you to level up
A team that values builders and moves fast without lying to itself
Work with real consequences and real pride when it ships
Company
Watchtower Labs
Our team merges three worlds: National security operators, commercial tech investors with warfighting experiences, and technologists who have built and scaled the largest distributed systems in the world.
Founded in 2024
11-50 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageCompany data provided by crunchbase