What are the responsibilities and job description for the Backend Software Engineer - Sensors and Tracking position at Rune Technologies?
About Rune
Rune Technologies builds mission-critical software for military logistics and sustainment. Our flagship product is TyrOS, an AI-enabled logistics command and control platform that gives commanders a single, real-time operating picture of their sustainment fight, from inventory and distribution to medical and operational planning, even in degraded and contested environments.
We're not a traditional defense contractor. We're a small, fast-moving team that combines deep operational experience in and with the DoD with the software discipline of the best product companies, and we apply that combination to a customer set that desperately needs it. We stay close to our users by embedding directly with military units during exercises and rotations, and we ship constantly based on what we learn.
The U.S. military and its allies face a real logistics modernization problem. We're building the software to solve it.
About the Role
At Rune Technologies, we are building the logistics technology backbone that the U.S. and allied militaries need to dominate in large-scale combat operations. As a Backend Software Engineer at Rune, you will be part of a high-impact team working at the intersection of advanced logistics software, physical systems, and complex data integrations—all in support of the warfighter at the tactical edge.
You'll join us in our mission to bring 21st-century software to the sustainment domain: modernizing inventory management, transportation optimization, and operational planning with state-of-the-art user experiences. You'll work closely with a team of experienced engineers, product leaders, and operational experts who care deeply about delivering real-world impact.
As our Backend Software Engineer for Sensors and Tracking, you will be the first engineer dedicated to this workstream within TyrOS. You will build the systems that ingest data directly from physical hardware and sensors—including fuel-level sensors, munitions-count systems, and pallet-scanning technologies—and transform that data into reliable, usable information within the platform. You will also help develop tracking and sensor-fusion capabilities that correlate detections from multiple sources into a coherent view of a single entity or object.
This is a ground-floor role with significant ownership. You will not be inheriting an established team or mature playbook, so we are looking for an experienced software engineer who is comfortable operating in ambiguity, solving difficult hardware-to-software integration problems, and building production systems from the ground up.
What You'll Do
Build and own production-grade backend systems that ingest data directly from physical sensors, devices, and hardware platforms.
Develop integrations for a range of sensor and hardware systems, working with clean APIs where available and finding reliable ways to extract data where interfaces are incomplete, poorly documented, or nonexistent.
Design services and data pipelines that normalize, process, and make sensor data available within TyrOS.
Build and improve tracking and sensor-fusion capabilities that correlate detections from multiple sources into a single tracked entity.
Work with imperfect real-world data, including incomplete, delayed, inconsistent, or unreliable feeds.
Collaborate with platform engineers, product teams, and operational stakeholders to translate sensor and tracking requirements into dependable software.
Deploy and test software in both unclassified and classified environments, including periodic work at customer or government sites.
Participate in technical design discussions and code reviews, contributing to a culture of engineering rigor, ownership, and mission focus.
Triage and debug production issues, improving system reliability, observability, and performance through rapid iteration.
Qualifications
4 years of experience in software engineering, with demonstrated experience building and operating production software systems.
Hands-on experience integrating software with physical hardware, sensors, or device-generated data streams.
Experience personally building systems that ingest data directly from hardware—not only consuming data that has already been processed or exposed through a third-party service.
Proficiency in Python or Go.
Strong backend software engineering foundation, including experience designing services, APIs, data pipelines, and production systems.
Ability to work effectively with messy, incomplete, or poorly documented hardware interfaces and data formats.
Genuine software development experience—this role requires someone who writes and ships production code, not someone whose experience is primarily interpreting signals, configuring systems, or analyzing their output.
Comfort operating as an early or first hire in a new function with limited existing structure, internal expertise, or established processes.
Strong sense of ownership and a bias for action.
Desired Qualifications
Experience with sensor fusion, multi-sensor correlation, object tracking, or related algorithms.
Experience at a company operating at the intersection of hardware and software, such as autonomous systems, drones, radar, aerospace, satellites, robotics, or defense technology.
Familiarity with defense or government sensor, signal, or tracking data.
Experience building software for classified, disconnected, degraded, or operationally constrained environments.
Experience working with radar systems, embedded data pipelines, telemetry, or other real-time hardware-generated data.
Active security clearance at the Secret level or above.
Benefits
Rune offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees to include a full suite of insurance options at no cost for employees and low-cost to spouses and dependents. Highly competitive equity grants are also included in the majority of full time offers and are considered part of Rune's total compensation package. Benefits include:
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans; premiums 100% covered by Rune for all employees; exceptionally low premiums for spouses and dependents
Basic life insurance and disability 100% covered for all employees by Rune; option to purchase additional life insurance available
‘Take the time off that you need, when you need it’ paid time off, not accrual based
Generous company holiday calendar including a holiday shutdown in December
Supportive leave of absence program including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave
Full 401(k) retirement plan for all full-time eligible employees
Company-funded commuter benefits
Free access to on-site gym at office