Senior Backend Software Engineer - Distributed Systems

ABOUT US:

Havoc is a leader in all-domain collaborative autonomy. Its software-defined hardware approach powers military and commercial-grade autonomous systems across sea, air, and land to sense, decide, and act together in complex and contested environments. Havoc connects assets, enabling them to share information, adapt in real time, and continue operating even when communications are disrupted or denied. Havoc optimizes mission performance and minimizes human risk.

Havoc was founded in 2024 and headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Learn more at Havoc: All-Domain Collaborative Autonomy http://havocai.com/ .

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to drive the development of scalable, high-performance backend systems that power our autonomous platforms.

In this role, you will be hands-on in architecture and development as a senior individual contributor. You will be responsible for designing and building highly concurrent, distributed systems in Go, helping set technical direction, and ensuring reliable, secure, and performant backend services.

You will work closely with frontend, platform, autonomy, and embedded teams to deliver systems that operate reliably in real-world, mission-critical environments.

This role is ideal for someone who combines deep backend expertise with strong technical judgment and thrives in fast-paced, high-ownership environments.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

TECHNICAL OWNERSHIP

• Drive execution and technical excellence across backend projects

• Set engineering standards, conduct code reviews, and guide architectural decisions

• Contribute to backend roadmap and delivery in partnership with product and engineering leadership

• Foster a culture of ownership, quality, and continuous improvement

BACKEND ARCHITECTURE & DEVELOPMENT

• Design, build, and maintain scalable, highly concurrent backend services in Go

• Architect distributed systems that support high throughput, reliability, and real-time operations

• Define service boundaries, APIs, and data models across systems

• Design services for high availability and fault tolerance across availability zones

• Evolve singleton services into multi-zone, distributed deployments

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE & RELIABILITY

• Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and resilience

• Identify and resolve bottlenecks in distributed systems and concurrency-heavy workloads

• Ensure systems meet high standards for uptime and operational reliability

• Improve observability, maintainability, and operational readiness of backend services

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION

• Partner with frontend, platform, autonomy, and embedded teams to integrate services across applications and devices

• Support end-to-end system design from edge devices to cloud infrastructure

• Contribute to system-level architecture across the stack

• Help align backend capabilities with product, platform, and mission needs

SECURITY & BEST PRACTICES

• Enforce secure development practices across backend systems

• Maintain high standards for code quality, testing, documentation, and reliability

• Support technical reviews, design discussions, and production readiness efforts

• Build systems with security, scalability, and long-term maintainability in mind

QUALIFICATIONS

• 6+ years of experience in backend engineering, distributed systems engineering, or related software engineering roles

• Strong expertise in Go and building highly concurrent systems

• Experience designing and operating highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems at scale

• Experience with consensus and coordination primitives, such as etcd, Raft, leader election, or similar patterns for multi-zone deployments

• Strong API design and system architecture skills

• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized environments

• Deep understanding of performance optimization, data structures, and system design

• Ability to drive projects from co