Imagine playing StarCraft—but the map is live, the sensor feeds are real and the vehicles you command are actually flying.
Now imagine building the backend that makes it all work.
New York, NY (Hybrid) • Full-time • $145,000–$275,000 + RSUs • Two openings
We’re partnering with Palantir to hire two Senior Software Engineers for its Autonomous Systems team. You’ll develop the core service layer connecting operator interfaces, edge and drone systems, sensor feeds, simulation engines and intelligent software.
This isn’t game development. But if you love the technical complexity behind real-time strategy games—multiple systems, live state changes, competing priorities and decisions made in seconds—the engineering challenge will feel remarkably familiar.
Your Mission
In a strategy game, the player sees a seamless world: units move, information updates and actions trigger immediate responses.
Behind Palantir’s autonomous systems platform sits an equally complex service layer. That’s what you’ll build.
Your work will include:
- Building scalable microservices that connect numerous systems in real time
- Relaying live data between drones, sensors, operator interfaces and cloud services
- Developing middleware and APIs linking edge systems with front-end applications
- Managing state, messaging and coordination across distributed autonomous systems
- Connecting physics and simulation engines with live operational software
- Building the platform used by teams specializing in AI, robotics, sensing and autonomy
- Designing reliable, secure and fail-safe services for demanding environments
- Taking new capabilities from rapid prototype to real-world field deployment
- Working directly with customers to test, refine and improve the product
The result is a command-and-control platform that allows users to understand a complex environment, coordinate autonomous assets and respond in real time.
Your Engineering Background
You’re a hands-on backend or platform engineer who has built more than straightforward applications. You’ve created the connective tissue between services and understand what happens when large distributed systems must communicate quickly and reliably.
You’ll ideally bring:
- Around 4–10 years of backend, platform or distributed-systems engineering experience
- Strong experience building microservices, middleware, APIs or service-layer platforms
- Experience with real-time data, streaming, messaging or event-driven architecture
- A solid understanding of concurrency, scalability, latency, resilience and fault tolerance
- Experience connecting numerous applications, services or external systems
- A track record of shipping quickly in a startup, scale-up or similarly fast-moving environment
- Strong coding ability in Rust, Java, Go, C++, Python, Scala or another modern backend language
- A Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering or related technical degree
- The ability to collaborate directly with customers and multidisciplinary engineering teams
Palantir’s environment is Rust-primary, but existing Rust experience is not mandatory. Strong engineers from other language backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
Companies that have engineered high-scale, real-time platforms—Uber is a useful reference point—are particularly relevant.
The Right Level
This role suits a strong mid-to-senior IC, roughly L5 progressing toward L6, who still writes substantial amounts of production code.
You may be ready to lead a small team within the next year, but you don’t want to step away from engineering. You enjoy solving hard technical problems, getting code into production and seeing the result operate in the real world.
What You Don’t Need
You don’t need previous experience with drones, defense systems or robotics.
Experience with LLMs, AI agents, autonomous platforms or edge computing is helpful, but it’s a bonus—not the core requirement.
This role is for the engineers building the platform beneath those technologies. It is unlikely to suit someone focused primarily on ML research, mathematical algorithms, simulation or autonomous path-planning.
Why Palantir?
Palantir builds software used by some of the world’s most operationally demanding institutions to make critical decisions in real time.
This team is applying that capability to autonomous systems. You’ll have exceptional technical resources, highly capable colleagues and the opportunity to work on software that moves beyond a screen and into live operational environments.
It has the pace and ownership of a startup, backed by the resources and reach of Palantir.
And unlike most backend roles, you’ll be able to watch what you built coordinate real autonomous vehicles in the field.
The details
- Base salary: $145,000–$275,000, depending on level and location
- Equity: RSUs
- Locations: Seattle, New York City, Washington DC or Palo Alto
- Working model: Hybrid, with travel to customer and deployment sites
- Employment: Full-time
- Openings: Two
- Eligibility: Applicants must be US citizens and eligible to obtain a US security clearance. This role is not open to visa sponsorship, and Green Card status alone does not meet the clearance requirement.
- Interview process: Includes a 45-minute live coding assessment
If building the service layer behind a real-world version of StarCraft sounds like your kind of engineering problem, we’d love to hear from you.
Apply for this Senior Software Engineer role
This is one of the most technically interesting backend openings we’re running in 2026: real distributed systems, real autonomous vehicles, real mission impact. Big Wave Digital has placed engineers into world-class product companies for over a decade, and we’ll walk you through the team, the stack and the interview loop before you commit. Apply now: this search moves fast and only two seats are open.
