Staff Software Engineer: Compute

United States Digital Space LLC; Washington; Hybrid; USD 405,000 - 485,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Visa sponsorship

Hybrid office policy

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is building software and Claude-powered tools to support large-scale datacenter buildouts. We seek engineers who can learn the domain from operators, model messy data, and ship trusted systems that track sites, designs, BOMs, and construction progress.

Strong candidates have 8+ years of software experience, full-stack skills, and a focus on data modeling, APIs, and databases. Datacenter or construction domain experience is a plus; visa sponsorship may be available.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8+ years building software in startup-like environments.
• Experience with datacenters, construction, energy, or logistics domains is a plus.
• Strong grounding in data modeling, APIs, and databases.
• Ability to ship quickly while maintaining data quality and trust.

Responsibilities

• Build core systems that track a datacenter's lifecycle (sites, designs, BOMs, equipment, construction progress).
• Embed with datacenter, energy, and supply chain teams to map workflows and identify critical paths.
• Migrate and reconcile messy data from spreadsheets and legacy trackers; integrate with industry tools.
• Design for trust with fine-grained permissions and auditable data.
• Collaborate with research to understand model capabilities and gaps in physical-world domains.

Skills

8+ years of software experience

Full-stack development

Data modeling

APIs and databases

User-centric design

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Procore

Autodesk Construction Cloud

Primavera P6

PLM/BOM

ERP and procurement

CAD/BIM

DCIM

Power system studies

Job description

About the company

the company’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About the role

At the company, we're building AI systems that are safe, beneficial, and transformative. Our mission is to develop AI that benefits humanity, and we believe the most powerful capabilities emerge when we thoughtfully bridge the gap between research breakthroughs and real-world applications.

Frontier AI runs on datacenters, and the world is in the middle of the largest infrastructure buildout in a generation. The binding constraint on progress is increasingly everything around the chips: land, power, permits, equipment, and the design and construction of the buildings themselves. Bringing a single site online involves hundreds of people, thousands of components, and decisions that move enormous amounts of capital. Much of that work still runs on spreadsheets and handoffs.

At the company, we're building software and Claude-powered tools to help the company scale out its compute, and we think there's an enormous opportunity to rethink how that work gets done. It's early, it's already having a real impact, and the engineers who join now will shape how one of the most consequential buildouts in the world gets done.

We're looking for strong, versatile software engineers who love building for people doing real work in the physical world. You'll embed with the teams that source sites, design buildings, procure equipment, and manage construction, learn their work deeply, and build the tools and systems they rely on every day. Datacenter experience is a big plus, but what matters most is that you can earn the trust of expert operators, model a messy domain cleanly, and move fast.

Responsibilities

• Build the core systems that track a datacenter's lifecycle (sites, designs, bills of materials, equipment, and construction progress) in one trusted, permissioned source of truth

• Embed with datacenter, energy, and supply chain teams to understand how the work actually gets done, find the critical path, and build the tools they reach for first

• Bring order to messy data by migrating and reconciling spreadsheets and legacy trackers, and integrate with the industry's tools, like construction management, scheduling, and engineering systems

• Design for trust: fine-grained permissions, auditability, and data quality for information that steers major investment decisions

• Ship early, iterate with users, and cut anything that doesn't help bring compute online sooner

• Partner with research to understand new model capabilities and share where they fall short in engineering-heavy, physical-world domains

You may be a good fit if you

• Have 8+ years of experience building software, with strong full-stack skills and solid grounding in data modeling, APIs, and databases

• Have built software that teams in a physical-world industry depend on, such as datacenters, construction, energy, manufacturing, supply chain, or logistics

• Have a track record of zero-to-one work in startup or startup-like environments

• Are deeply user-centric: you learn the domain from the people doing the work and validate with them before over-investing

• Bring high agency and good judgment about what matters, and hold strong opinions loosely

• Communicate clearly across engineering, operations, and research, and care about the societal impacts of your work

Strong candidates may also have

• Experience in datacenters (at a hyperscaler, colocation provider, operator, utility, or engineering firm), or in adjacent fields like construction, logistics, or legal

• Experience with the domain's tooling, such as construction management (Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud), scheduling (Primavera P6), PLM/BOM, ERP and procurement, CAD/BIM, DCIM, or power system studies

• A background in electrical, mechanical, or civil engineering, energy systems, or supply chain alongside a software career

• Experience building products with large language models

Candidates need not have

-

100% of the skills listed above

-

Formal certifications or education credentials

-

Direct machine learning or AI research experience

Deadline to apply:

None. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary:

$405,000—$485,000 USD

LogisticsMinimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience

Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position

Location-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.

Visa sponsorship:We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.