Staff Python Engineer (Modeling & Simulation)

Code Metal • San Francisco, CA

9d • Hybrid

About The Position

Code Metal is seeking a Staff Python Engineer for their Modeling & Simulation team. This team is developing a next-generation wargaming and decision-support platform used by the Department of Defense for multi-billion-dollar force-design decisions. The role involves designing and implementing backend services, APIs, and pipelines that drive the core wargaming simulation. Responsibilities include integrating with simulators, managing data, exposing results to stakeholders, and developing infrastructure for AI/ML pipelines. The engineer will also design scenario-generation, Monte Carlo, sensitivity-analysis, and campaign-evaluation workflows, and build distributed, cloud-scale infrastructure that ensures reproducibility and model provenance. Strong command of cloud services and distributed architectures is essential. The Staff level expectations include defining and enforcing testing strategies, providing architectural guidance, owning technical scoping for complex initiatives, and acting as the primary technical gatekeeper for the team's codebase.

Requirements

• Professional experience with collaborative, enterprise-level software development in Python, delivering products to a large customer base.
• Experience gathering requirements from stakeholders and distilling them into software designs.
• Experience building and delivering robust software using strong SDLC practices, including code review, testing, continuous integration, release management, and build systems.
• Familiarity with machine learning tools and frameworks.
• Expertise building scalable APIs (REST, GraphQL, gRPC).
• Hands-on experience with Docker and containerized application development.
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Top Secret security clearance.
• 7+ years of experience.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with agentic AI frameworks and solutions.
• Familiarity with code analysis / static analysis.
• Experience working with cloud-based distributed systems (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Active U.S. security clearance (Secret, Top Secret, or SCI/SAP).
• Direct experience developing AFSIM plugins, framework extensions, event infrastructure, or custom platform types.
• Familiarity with HLA, DIS, OneSAF, JSAF, NGTS, STK, or other constructive and distributed simulation environments.
• Experience supporting Air Force, Space Force, joint, or broader DoD acquisition and mission-analysis programs.
• Experience developing models for sensors, weapons, electronic warfare, jamming, communications, logistics, or command and control.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement backend services and APIs that orchestrate mission- and campaign-level simulation runs, collect their outputs, and expose results to analysts and government stakeholders.
• Build scenario-generation, operational and mission planning workflows, and key services for Monte-Carlo based sensitivity-analysis for our wargaming and decision-support platform.
• Build distributed, cloud-scale infrastructure that scales simulations across developer workstations, on-premises infrastructure, and cloud compute while preserving reproducibility and model provenance.
• Build data ingestion, normalization, and analysis pipelines that turn raw simulation output into decision-ready insight for defense users.
• Build scalable APIs (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) and containerized services that connect the Python tooling layer to the core simulation runtime and downstream analysis tools.
• Gather requirements from government stakeholders, domain experts, and analysts, and distill them into clear software designs.
• Employ strong SDLC practices throughout — code review, testing, continuous integration, release management, and build systems.
• Define and enforce the team's testing strategy, standards, and quality bar.
• Ensure AI-generated output is tightly integrated into existing paradigms and robustly tested.
• Design cross-cutting changes across the stack.
• Provide architectural guidance across the team.
• Own design docs for major multi-service or multi-surface projects.
• Own technical scoping and execution strategy for complex, multi-sprint initiatives.
• Audit requirements for technical risk and hidden dependencies before development begins.
• Act as the primary technical gatekeeper for the team's codebase.
• Review most high-impact work.
• Lead technical grooming, design spikes, and RFCs.
• Coordinate across pods when changes cross domain boundaries.

Benefits

• Health care plan with 100% premium coverage, including medical, dental, and vision
• 401k with 5% matching
• Paid Time Off (uncapped vacation, plus sick and public holidays)
• Flexible hybrid or remote work arrangement
• Relocation assistance for qualifying employees

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed