Junior Software Engineer
Modern Intelligence, Austin, Texas
- Pay
- $100K–$120K / year
- Work type
- Onsite
- Level
- Entry level
- Area
- Software engineering, Inference & ML systems, ML / AI engineering
- Posted
- Sep 11, 2026
About the role
Artificial intelligence is changing war - making decisions in combat quicker and more accurate, while enabling information to be shared more rapidly across both America’s and her adversaries’ militaries. Modern Intelligence builds Sovereign, the first defense-purpose foundation AI for unmanned systems, to be the standard battlefield AI on every Western unmanned system. Today, Sovereign allows drones as varied as unmanned vessels on water to backpack attack quadcopters to see, decide, and act even when jammed. We believe the responsibility of reliably and ethically building lethally autonomous AI is immense to our service members, the American people, and civilians everywhere.
Modern Intelligence has worked with partners across the Department of War including the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, and countless unmanned systems hardware companies.
We have raised more than $22M in venture capital from Exponential, Oxford Funds, Bedrock, Vine Ventures, Contrary, Air Street, Caffeinated, Champion Hill, Swell, Myelin, and others.
Details We are looking for a software engineer excited to take technology demonstrated on test ranges and relatively peaceful theaters and see it proven on the battlefield.
We have a small software team, but are looking to grow it rapidly. We are seeing significant increase in customer engagement and are looking to expand capacity on an established team. We need engineers willing to travel and support field deployments and integrations. And importantly, we want to take our product to and prove it in Ukraine.
Our product, Sovereign, is an Automated Target Recognition and Automated Terminal Guidance solution that works on any platform in any domain - we are currently working to expand its capability to meet any autonomy requirement for any unmanned system.
We are looking for engineers passionate about drones, autonomy, supporting our service men and women, and defending democracy and freedom around the world.
Requirements - Proficiency in a compiled systems language: C++, Rust, or C. Our primary codebase is C++20; we do not expect you to know C++20 on day one, but we do expect you to already think in terms of memory, types, and build artifacts.
- Comfortable writing Python.
- Comfortable developing on Linux: command line, git, and code review.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or comparable, or equivalent demonstrated experience.
- Willingness to travel and support field deployments and integrations.
- Must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or other protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)). This role works on export-controlled technology.
Preferred Qualifications - Experience with Bazel, or with CMake and an appetite for learning Bazel.
- Applied linear algebra: coordinate frames, covariance, Kalman filters, geodesy.
Similar roles at other companies
Pay not posted
Posted 8 days ago
Pay not posted
Posted 5 days ago
Pay not posted
Posted 5 days ago
Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Systems
PalantirWashington, D.C.
$145K–$200K / yr
Posted Jul 22, 2026
Listed on Modern Intelligence's Lever job board; checked 24 h ago. First seen by us 24 h ago. Being listed doesn't mean the team is actively interviewing. We found this board in a public directory and haven't yet confirmed it against the company's own careers page.