Software Engineer - Backend

Review code contributions, proposals, and RFCs from colleagues. At Helsing we strongly believe that unblocking others takes precedence over spending more time on your own work.

Propose and implement new features, capabilities, algorithms, infrastructure, or even full products across our stack. We encourage our engineers to look beyond their immediate team for missed opportunities, and to speak up when they identify one.

Become a mentor, find a mentee, and help support and develop our interviewing pipeline. The people make or break the company, and we want as many engineers as possible to be part of fostering and growing the organisation.

Share your experience and technical know-how with other Helsingers. We host tech talks, get together for smaller “let’s learn together” groups, run topical office hours (e.g., on Rust), etc. to help each other get better with time.

Maintain our existing software stack, including working with internal and external customers to identify issues, improving operational reliability and performance, and fending off technical debt. The stack is a mix of Rust and Python, with Python mainly living in the ML-heavy sections.

Further develop our tests and benchmarks, both at the micro and macro level. We operate in a domain where robustness is of the utmost importance, and an extensive and ever-improving test suite is key to achieving that. And without thorough benchmarks, we would be flying blind.

Present your work at our weekly demo sessions. We want engineers to come together around what they are working on and to feel like they are not endlessly squirrelling away at something that doesn’t matter. To that end, we host (and actively work towards) demo sessions that allow early feedback, celebration of progress, and a better shared understanding of everything that goes on at Helsing.

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, having discussions by email).

Have backend development experience, ideally with a language like 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 like ethical considerations are an inherent part of engineering.

Note: We operate at an intersection where women, as well as other minority groups, are systematically under-represented. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarised in a few bullet points.

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.

Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns.

The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world.

Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward.

In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts.

We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about.

A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking

Competitive compensation and VSOP options

Relocation support

Social and education allowances

Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe

A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one

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.