Software Engineer - Backend

Helsing; Greater London; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation and stock options

Relocation support

Regular company events across Europe

Job summary

A defence AI company is seeking a Software Engineer - Backend to develop AI-based capabilities within ethically driven frameworks. You will address significant engineering challenges like distributed systems and contribute to deploying robust software. Ideal candidates have backend development experience in languages such as Rust or Python, enjoy collaborative environments, and are committed to ethical engineering practices. This role offers competitive compensation and a focus on outcomes rather than time tracking.

Qualifications

• Ability to write maintainable and performant code.
• Excellent communication skills in English, both verbal and written.
• Enjoyment of collaboration, code reviews, and pair programming.

Responsibilities

• Review code contributions and proposals from colleagues.
• Propose and implement new features across our stack.
• Support and develop the interviewing pipeline.

Skills

Backend development experience

Collaboration and code review

Ethical considerations in engineering

Comfortable working asynchronously

Tools

Rust

Python

Docker

AWS

SQL

Job description

Join to apply for the Software Engineer - Backend role at Helsing.

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards.

The role

At Helsing we develop and deliver AI-based capabilities and the enabling infrastructure that allow semi‑autonomous platforms to localise, navigate, and perceive the world in real time. We build software that is subject to significant and unorthodox technical constraints, must operate in constantly changing environments, and has to support an ever‑growing list of challenging use‑cases. Our work ends up in the hands of real people in high‑risk, high‑stress situations, so it must be both reliable and frictionless. This brings a host of interesting engineering challenges:

• Distributed systems (e.g., intermittent connectivity and Byzantine actors)
• Embedded computing (e.g., resource‑constrained compute and reverse‑engineering)
• Robotics (e.g., control systems and tasking)
• Networking (e.g., long‑range low‑bandwidth radios and cross‑medium routing)
• Deployment infrastructure (e.g., air‑gapped devices and heterogeneous fleets)
• Security (e.g., data sharing in low‑trust, no‑TLS networks and truly secret data handling)
• Machine learning (systems for model development, storage, and dissemination)

The day‑to‑day

• Review code contributions, proposals, and RFCs from colleagues.
• Propose and implement new features, capabilities, algorithms, infrastructure, or even full products across our stack.
• Become a mentor, find a mentee, and help support and develop the interviewing pipeline.
• Share your experience and technical know‑how with other Helsingers through tech talks, office hours, and learning groups.
• Maintain our existing software stack, working with internal and external customers to identify issues, improve operational reliability and performance, and reduce technical debt. The stack is a mix of Rust and Python, with Python mainly in the ML‑heavy sections.
• Further develop tests and benchmarks, both at the micro and macro level, to ensure robustness and performance.
• Present your work at weekly demo sessions, fostering early feedback and shared understanding.

You should apply if you

• Can write legible, maintainable, and performant code.
• Communicate well in English, both verbally and in writing.
• Enjoy collaborating with others, including reviewing code and pair programming.
• Are comfortable working asynchronously (writing PRs and RFCs, email discussions).
• Have backend development experience, preferably in Rust, Java, Go, or C++.
• Are familiar with backend interface tools like REST, GraphQL, gRPC/Protocol Buffers, and Arrow.
• Strive to improve yourself, your peers, and the culture you work in over time.
• Feel that ethical considerations are an inherent part of engineering.

We encourage applicants from under‑represented groups, including women and other minorities, to apply. Ability and impact cannot be summarized in a few bullet points.

Nice to have

• Experience with Rust and Python specifically.
• Container‑based and cloud‑native application architectures (e.g., Docker, Azure, AWS).
• Metrics tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).
• SQL and streaming database systems.
• Routing protocols (e.g., IGP, BGP).
• Cryptographic protocols (e.g., Signal, WireGuard).
• Hardware interfaces (e.g., Arduino).
• Robotics (e.g., control systems).
• Production ML systems.

Join Helsing and work with world‑leading experts in their fields

• Helsing’s work is important; you’ll directly contribute to the protection of democratic countries while balancing ethical and geopolitical concerns.
• The work is unique, operating in a domain that demands robustness, safety, and ethical considerations.
• We frequently push to the state of the art in technical innovation, including reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, and deployment infrastructure.
• Success is measured by order‑of‑magnitude improvements and novel capabilities.
• We encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally; engineers have the autonomy and responsibility to shape how we work.

What We Offer

• A focus on outcomes, not time‑tracking.
• Competitive compensation and stock options.
• Relocation support.
• Social and education allowances.
• Regular company events and all‑hands meetings across Europe.
• A hands‑on onboarding program (“Infraduction”) where you build tooling and applications used across the company.

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.

Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime can be found here.