Senior/Staff Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

webAI•Austin, TX

About The Position

webAI is seeking engineers to drive its Public Sector initiatives by building secure, resilient, distributed data systems for tactical-edge environments. These systems must operate in Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) bandwidth conditions, where connectivity is not guaranteed. The work emphasizes practical edge synchronization: discovering local nodes, forwarding and storing critical data across ad-hoc transports such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and reconciling state after connectivity returns. The role involves architecting software that runs across edge nodes, mobile endpoints, and cloud synchronization services. Engineers will develop systems for dynamic field settings, integrating applied software components with core infrastructure and validating functionality under simulated and live field constraints.

Requirements

5–7+ years of software engineering experience building robust systems software or distributed networking services.
Strong proficiency in Rust or another systems-level language, such as Go, C, or C++.
Demonstrated experience with store-and-forward architectures, delay-tolerant networks (DTN), asynchronous I/O, or local device-to-device transport layers such as BLE, TCP/IP, or socket-level asynchronous networking.
Practical experience solving synchronization challenges under intermittent, contested, or low-throughput network constraints (DDIL).

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with hybrid mobile/cloud application architecture and state reconciliation.
Hands-on experience testing and evaluating wireless networking hardware and software in physical field or operational testing environments outside traditional lab/SCIF environments.
Background in content-addressable data structures, Merkle DAGs, or CRDTs.
Expertise in embedded hardware or robotics orchestration.

Responsibilities

Design and implement store-and-forward transport and data synchronization protocols for low-bandwidth, high-latency, and DDIL field conditions.
Implement local peer discovery and asynchronous I/O transports over heterogeneous links, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth/BLE, and ad-hoc mesh networks.
Apply delay-tolerant networking principles and local conflict-free data synchronization, such as CRDTs and content-addressable storage, to support offline operation.
Integrate software components deployed at the edge with core infrastructure.
Use memory-management and debugging techniques on resource-constrained systems to improve the network.
Understand and implement authorization and authentication security patterns suitable for DDIL and contested environments.
Collaborate with hardware, mobile, and forward-deployed teams to validate end-to-end functionality under simulated and live field constraints.

Benefits

Competitive salary and performance-based incentives.
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits package, including a high-deductible HSA option with a $200/month company contribution.
401(k) match for U.S.-based employees.
Equity options.
Flexible PTO policy.
Parental leave for eligible employees.
Continuing education support.
Basic company-paid life insurance and supplemental life insurance.
Company-paid short- and long-term disability.
Free parking for in-office employees.