Staff Software Engineer, True Anomaly

• True Anomaly seeks those with the talent and ambition to build innovative technology that solves the next generation of engineering, manufacturing, and operational challenges for space security and sustainability
• 12+ years of software development experience
• Expert-level mastery of Elixir and OTP, including deep understanding of BEAM internals, scheduling, memory management, garbage collection, process architecture, and runtime characteristics at scale
• Deep expertise in designing, building, and evolving large-scale distributed systems, including architectural patterns for fault tolerance, consistency, availability, clustering, and horizontal scalability
• Proven track record of establishing comprehensive testing strategies across unit, integration, property-based, and end-to-end layers, including championing testing culture and tooling adoption
• Extensive experience designing, building, and evolving service architectures, libraries, and internal infrastructure that serve multiple teams and products
• Expert-level understanding of distributed systems integration patterns including gRPC, REST, WebSockets, and GraphQL, with experience influencing API design and cross-service architecture decisions
• Demonstrated ability to work full-stack when necessary, with enough frontend and infrastructure knowledge to make informed architectural decisions and unblock teams
• History of leading technical initiatives in Git-based workflows, establishing code review standards, and fostering collaborative engineering culture
• U.S. Citizen and eligible for DoD Secret or TS/SCI clearance

Desirable

• Software is the central nervous system for True Anomaly's engineering and product thesis
• Software bridges the gap between military objectives, theoretical astrodynamics and the human and autonomous control of spacecraft and ground systems in time and space
• True Anomaly is seeking an exceptional Staff Elixir Software Engineer to lead the technical direction and evolution of our distributed spacecraft ground control system
• This is a high-impact, strategic leadership role
• You'll define and drive the backend systems technical roadmap, lead cross-functional initiatives that span engineering, product, and operations, and establish the architectural foundations that will scale our distributed ground control platform for years to come
• You'll identify strategic technical investments, champion them across the organization, and lead their execution
• You won't just build features; you'll shape the product direction, influence company objectives, and mentor the engineers who will build the next generation of our platform
• When you see systemic issues affecting reliability, velocity, or quality, you'll diagnose root causes, build consensus around solutions, and drive organizational change to address them
• You'll lead high-priority, greenfield initiatives with strategic importance to the company and a chance to fundamentally impact the outcome of future conflict (and the future of the company), all while enjoying world-class benefits including platinum healthcare, flexible work hours/location, highly competitive compensation and a generous stock options package
• Lead and deliver large-scale, cross-functional distributed systems initiatives that align with strategic company objectives, from technical vision through production deployment and long-term evolutio
• Define and drive the Elixir/OTP systems roadmap and architectural strategy, establishing patterns, frameworks, and infrastructure that enable the entire engineering organization to move faste
• Serve as the primary technical decision-maker for distributed systems architecture, evaluating and adopting new technologies, and establishing engineering standards that balance innovation with maintainabilit
• Proactively identify systemic reliability risks, scalability challenges, and architectural limitations, then build business cases, secure buy-in, and lead multi-quarter initiatives to address the
• Elevate the engineering organization through technical mentorship, establishing best practices, leading design reviews, and developing the skills of senior, mid-level, and junior engineer
• Partner with executive leadership, product, design, frontend engineering, space operations, and astrodynamics teams as a key technical stakeholder, influencing product strategy and company directio
• Drive engineering efficiency and excellence by establishing metrics, tooling, and processes that improve system reliability, deployment velocity, and developer experienc
• Build and maintain technical documentation, architectural decision records, and knowledge-sharing systems that scale organizational learnin
• Represent the distributed systems engineering perspective in strategic planning, resource allocation, and cross-company technical decision
• Identify and develop emerging technical leaders within the team, creating growth pathways and opportunities for engineers to expand their impact
• WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN THIS ROLE
• You recognize that the team is repeatedly solving similar distributed systems problems in different ways; you design and champion a unified framework, drive its adoption across teams, and measure its impact on velocity and reliability
• You identify a fundamental scalability limitation in the ground control architecture before it becomes a crisis; you build a compelling case with data, present it to leadership, secure a quarter of engineering time, and lead the migration
• You're involved in early product strategy discussions, not just implementation; you're shaping what we build by contributing technical insights about feasibility, risk, and opportunity
• A critical production issue arises affecting spacecraft operations; you quickly establish incident command, coordinate the response across teams, drive it to resolution, and lead the post-mortem that prevents recurrence
• You see a pattern of distributed systems decisions being made in isolation; you establish a lightweight architectural review process that improves decisions while respecting team autonomy
• You're asked about the 6-month backend systems roadmap and can articulate not just what's being built, but why it matters, what success looks like, what the risks are, and what alternatives were considered
• Junior and mid-level engineers come to you not because they're stuck on a problem, but because they want to validate their architectural thinking; and you help them grow as technical decision-makers
• You notice the team is spending significant time on a particular class of reliability issue; you trace it to a root architectural cause, propose a fundamental rework, and lead its implementation
• You disagree with a strategic product or technical decision being made at the executive level; you present a well-researched alternative with clear tradeoffs and business impact, influencing the final direction
• Physical demands—the physical demands of the job, including bending, sitting, lifting and driving