Staff Software Engineer, Elixir
Space is a warfighting domain. True Anomaly seeks those with the talent and ambition to build the technology that secures it.
OUR MISSION
True Anomaly delivers decisive capabilities for space superiority. We build autonomous spacecraft, advanced payloads, mission software, and space-based interceptors — enabling the U.S. and its Allies to secure the space environment and counter threats from the ultimate high ground.
OUR VALUES
- Be the offset. We create asymmetric advantages with creativity and ingenuity.
- What would it take? We challenge assumptions to deliver ambitious results.
- It’s the people. Our team is our competitive advantage and we are better together.
YOUR MISSION
Software is the central nervous system for True Anomaly's engineering and product thesis. Software bridges the gap between military objectives, theoretical astrodynamics and the human and autonomous control of spacecraft and ground systems in time and space. True Anomaly is seeking an exceptional Staff Elixir Software Engineer to lead the technical direction and evolution of our distributed spacecraft ground control system.
This is a high-impact, strategic leadership role. You'll define and drive the backend systems technical roadmap, lead cross-functional initiatives that span engineering, product, and operations, and establish the architectural foundations that will scale our distributed ground control platform for years to come. You'll identify strategic technical investments, champion them across the organization, and lead their execution. You won't just build features; you'll shape the product direction, influence company objectives, and mentor the engineers who will build the next generation of our platform. When you see systemic issues affecting reliability, velocity, or quality, you'll diagnose root causes, build consensus around solutions, and drive organizational change to address them.
You do not need to have experience building space ground systems or experience in aerospace. You'll lead high-priority, greenfield initiatives with strategic importance to the company and a chance to fundamentally impact the outcome of future conflict (and the future of the company), all while enjoying world-class benefits including platinum healthcare, flexible work hours/location, highly competitive compensation and a generous stock options package.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Lead and deliver large-scale, cross-functional distributed systems initiatives that align with strategic company objectives, from technical vision through production deployment and long-term evolutio
- Define and drive the Elixir/OTP systems roadmap and architectural strategy, establishing patterns, frameworks, and infrastructure that enable the entire engineering organization to move faste
- Serve as the primary technical decision-maker for distributed systems architecture, evaluating and adopting new technologies, and establishing engineering standards that balance innovation with maintainabilit
- Proactively identify systemic reliability risks, scalability challenges, and architectural limitations, then build business cases, secure buy-in, and lead multi-quarter initiatives to address the
- Elevate the engineering organization through technical mentorship, establishing best practices, leading design reviews, and developing the skills of senior, mid-level, and junior engineer
- Partner with executive leadership, product, design, frontend engineering, space operations, and astrodynamics teams as a key technical stakeholder, influencing product strategy and company directio
- Drive engineering efficiency and excellence by establishing metrics, tooling, and processes that improve system reliability, deployment velocity, and developer experienc
- Build and maintain technical documentation, architectural decision records, and knowledge-sharing systems that scale organizational learnin
- Represent the distributed systems engineering perspective in strategic planning, resource allocation, and cross-company technical decision
- Identify and develop emerging technical leaders within the team, creating growth pathways and opportunities for engineers to expand their impact
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN THIS ROLE
- You recognize that the team is repeatedly solving similar distributed systems problems in different ways; you design and champion a unified framework, drive its adoption across teams, and measure its impact on velocity and reliability
- You identify a fundamental scalability limitation in the ground control architecture before it becomes a crisis; you build a compelling case with data, present it to leadership, secure a quarter of engineering time, and lead the migration
- You're involved in early product strategy discussions, not just implementation; you're shaping what we build by contributing technical insights about feasibility, risk, and opportunity
- A critical production issue arises affecting spacecraft operations; you quickly establish incident command, coordinate the response across teams, drive it to resolution, and lead the post-mortem that prevents recurrence
- You see a pattern of distributed systems decisions being made in isolation; you establish a lightweight architectural review process that improves decisions while respecting team autonomy
- You're asked about the 6-month backend systems roadmap and can articulate not just what's being built, but why it matters, what success looks like, what the risks are, and what alternatives were considered
- Junior and mid-level engineers come to you not because they're stuck on a problem, but because they want to validate their architectural thinking; and you help them grow as technical decision-makers
- You notice the team is spending significant time on a particular class of reliability issue; you trace it to a root architectural cause, propose a fundamental rework, and lead its implementation
- You disagree with a strategic product or technical decision being made at the executive level; you present a well-researched alternative with clear tradeoffs and business impact, influencing the final direction
QUALIFICATIONS
- 12+ years of software development experience
- Expert-level mastery of Elixir and OTP, including deep understanding of BEAM internals, scheduling, memory management, garbage collection, process architecture, and runtime characteristics at scale
- Deep expertise in designing, building, and evolving large-scale distributed systems, including architectural patterns for fault tolerance, consistency, availability, clustering, and horizontal scalability
- Proven track record of establishing comprehensive testing strategies across unit, integration, property-based, and end-to-end layers, including championing testing culture and tooling adoption
- Extensive experience designing, building, and evolving service architectures, libraries, and internal infrastructure that serve multiple teams and products
- Expert-level understanding of distributed systems integration patterns including gRPC, REST, WebSockets, and GraphQL, with experience influencing API design and cross-service architecture decisions
- Demonstrated ability to work full-stack when necessary, with enough frontend and infrastructure knowledge to make informed architectural decisions and unblock teams
- History of leading technical initiatives in Git-based workflows, establishing code review standards, and fostering collaborative engineering culture
- U.S. Citizen and eligible for DoD Secret or TS/SCI clearance
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science or similar discipline
- Proven experience as a technical lead, staff engineer, or principal engineer on production systems with significant user load and business-critical requirements
- Deep mastery of OTP including BEAM scheduling, GenServers, run queues, pg, the Actor model, dynamic supervisors, registries, distributed process groups, and custom OTP behaviours, with experience pushing the boundaries of the runtime
- Track record of leading large-scale migrations, architectural overhauls, or platform rewrites while maintaining product velocity and system reliability
- Deep expertise building and optimizing complex, real-time distributed systems with demanding reliability and performance requirements (real-time telemetry processing, mission-critical command and control, large-scale data pipelines)
- Advanced experience with database design and optimization at scale, including PostgreSQL internals, replication strategies, and data modeling for distributed systems
- Extensive experience with monitoring, observability, and distributed tracing in production systems, including designing observability strategies and incident response frameworks
- Experience in highly regulated industries (aerospace, defense, healthcare, finance) with understanding of compliance, security, and operational constraints
- Published technical writing, open source contributions, or conference speaking that demonstrates thought leadership
- Exceptional communication skills that enable you to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders at all levels of the organization
COMPENSATION
- Base Salary: $205,000 - $315,000
- Equity + Benefits including Health, Dental, Vision, HRA/HSA options, PTO and paid holidays, 401K, Parental Leave
Your actual level and base salary will be determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on the following considerations: job-related knowledge and skills, education, location, and experience.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
- Work Location—This is an onsite role, we are seeking candidates based near Denver, CO or Long Beach, CA.
- Work environment—the work environment; temperature, noise level, inside or outside, or other factors that will affect the person's working conditions while performing the job.
- Physical demands—the physical demands of the job, including bending, sitting, lifting and driving.
This position will be open until it is successfully filled. To submit your application, please follow the directions below. #LI-Onsite
To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
True Anomaly is committed to equal employment opportunity on any basis protected by applicable state and federal laws. If you have a disability or additional need that requires accommodation, please do not hesitate to let us.
About True Anomaly
True Anomaly develops space security technologies using AI, software, and spacecraft to enhance global security and sustainability.
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