---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer, Core Systems at Scout AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-core-systems-scout-ai-sunnyvale-phjy0fjynrb7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-15'
---

# Senior Software Engineer, Core Systems at Scout AI

- **Company:** Scout AI
- **Location:** Sunnyvale, CA
- **Compensation:** $170k–$380k
- **Posted:** 2026-10-10
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/scoutai/jobs/5449556008

## Job description

The future of defense will be decided by those who field intelligent machines at scale. At Scout AI, we’re developing Fury, the first robotic foundation model for defense, to give U.S. forces overwhelming, adaptable, and autonomous power across every domain. Fury enables human operators to command fleets of robots through natural language, and empowers those machines to sense, decide, and act together as one. This mission will ask everything of us: urgency, precision, and relentless work.

## The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer who treats the code itself as the product. You’ll join the core software team at Scout AI and work across the systems Fury runs on: the onboard C++ code and core libraries, the cloud infrastructure that trains and evaluates the model, and the simulation and evals framework that tells us whether any of it works.

A lot of this job is hardening. As our platform rapidly scales, our senior engineers actively drive architectural stewardship - continually refining abstractions, hardening core systems, and evolving our software foundation to support our accelerated growth. We want someone who can take that on: read a large codebase, understand it, spot the anti-patterns, and restructure it well.

The same person should be comfortable building the test and validation systems that let the rest of the team move faster. We aren’t hiring for one narrow specialty. Depending on where you’re strongest, you might spend most of your time onboard C++, in GPU job infrastructure and cloud services, or in simulation and evaluation tooling. What’s common across all of it is a background building frameworks and libraries that other systems depend on, rather than applications on top of someone else’s framework. We use AI coding tools and expect you to as well, but we think of them as a multiplier on skills you already have. You should be able to write, explain, and debug your own code without them.

We’re a startup. You’ll be moving fast, context-switching daily, and helping define the culture and process as we go. This is a rare opportunity to come in early and architect the future of defense.

## Responsibilities

- Develop and maintain onboard C++ software and core system libraries
- Build scalable, low-latency C++ and Python infrastructure for ML workloads
- Design cloud systems for data storage and GPU job scheduling
- Build simulation and evaluation pipelines, including synthetic agents, rendering tools, and scenario suites
- Create evaluation criteria and internal tooling to analyze and compare software release builds
- Refactor existing codebases to eliminate anti-patterns and improve system architecture
- Construct data pipelines for sensor calibration and 3D reconstruction workflows
- Implement automated test and validation frameworks across subsystem engineering teams

Qualification

- Proficient in C++ or Python (either is fine) for core systems, simulation, evaluation, and tooling work
- Demonstrated experience navigating, auditing, and refactoring large codebases
- Track record of building shared software frameworks or underlying libraries
- Ability to write, debug, and explain complex code independently without relying on AI tools
- Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
- Passion about defense of the United States and its allies
- May be expected to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance

## Nice to Have

- Cloud and infrastructure experience (GPU job scheduling, service deployment)
- Simulation or evals background
- Calibration or 3D reconstruction experience
- Edge or embedded hardware familiarity

## Why Join Scout

- Work on the world’s most important frontier, ensuring U.S. and allied dominance in the age of intelligent machines
- Be a core part of a team building the first defense-specific robotic foundation model
- Collaborate with some of the top engineers in autonomy, AI, and national security
- See your work deployed on real systems
- Help define the future of intelligent defense systems
- Backed by Draper Associates, Booz Allen Ventures, and other top investors

## Benefits

- Competitive compensation package including base salary and bonus
- Meaningful equity
- Premium medical, dental, and vision plans with $0 paycheck contribution
- Competitive PTO and company holiday calendar
- Catered lunch daily and fully stocked kitchen
- EV charging
- Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility)

The stated salary range below represents an estimated base pay only and reflects consideration of multiple compensation factors. Final salary offers may differ depending on factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience or training background, specialized skills, and business needs. Most full-time positions also include highly competitive equity awards, which form part of Scout AI's overall compensation package. In addition, Scout AI provides comprehensive, top-tier benefits to full-time employees.

US Salary Range $170,000—$380,000 USD

## About Scout AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Scout AI builds Fury, the first foundation model for defense robotics, enabling intelligent, autonomous unmanned systems for the U.S. military and its allies.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Funding: Series A at $100M)
- **Headquarters**: Sunnyvale, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Colby Adcock (CEO) and Collin Otis (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing
- **Target customers**: U.S. Department of Defense, allied forces, defense contractors (B2G / B2B)
- **Mission**: “Enable the largest robot army in the world for the good guys” – a Silicon Valley values-driven approach to AI for national security.

## Products & Services
- **[Fury](https://scoutco.ai/)**: A multimodal Vision-Language-Action foundation model that turns any uncrewed platform (ground, air, sea, space) into an intelligent, collaborative teammate. Key capabilities:
  - Operates in real time in GPS-denied and communications-denied environments with no cloud dependency.
  - Uses only passive sensors (RGB or thermal camera); no LIDAR or radar required.
  - Supports natural language commands (voice, text, map inputs) and robot-to-robot communication for swarm coordination.
  - Built entirely on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware for low-cost, high-rate manufacturing.
  - Self-improving at the tactical edge through imitation learning and simulation.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of **$115M** – Seed round ($15M, April 2025) and Series A ($100M, April 2026) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/scout-ai-official).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Booz Allen Ventures, Align Ventures, **Draper Associates** (Series A lead), Perot Jain. Growing network of defense ecosystem partners [scoutco.ai/company](https://scoutco.ai/company).
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew **192.9% YoY** to 30 employees (as of mid-2026). 23 active job postings across AI, robotics, mission operations, and business development. Strong talent inflow from Anduril, Google, Kodiak, and U.S. Army [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/scout-ai-official) | [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/scoutai).

## Competitive Advantages
- **First‑of‑its‑kind foundation model for defense robotics (Fury)** – not a narrow autonomy stack but a generalizable, multi-domain AI brain.
- **Hardware‑agnostic** – works with existing platforms and COTS components, enabling rapid integration without proprietary hardware lock-in.
- **Low‑power, passive sensing** – requires only a single camera stream, minimizing cost, weight, and electronic signature.
- **Natural language swarm coordination** – one operator can command fleets of heterogeneous robots, turning the current 1:1 operator‑robot ratio into a 1:many force multiplier.
- **Edge‑native design** – fully autonomous operation without connectivity, cloud, or GPS.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling Fury across all domains (ground, air, sea, space) and expanding partnerships with defense primes.
- Building out high‑rate, low‑cost manufacturing pipelines using COTS hardware.
- Aggressively hiring AI researchers, robotics engineers, and mission operators to maintain technology leadership.
- Positioning the U.S. and its allies to outpace adversaries (e.g., China) in robotic autonomy.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission‑driven**: Work on “the world’s most important frontier” – AI for national defense, with a stated commitment to democratic values.
- **Early‑stage rocket ship**: 192% YoY headcount growth; employees have direct impact on a small, lean team (30 people).
- **Culture**: Engineering‑heavy (32% technical headcount), with talent from top defense tech (Anduril, Kodiak), big tech (Google), and the military.
- **Work model**: On‑site in Sunnyvale, CA (HQ) and Paso Robles, CA (test & operations). Hybrid/remote limited – most roles are location‑specific.
- **Hot roles**: AI Engineers, AI Researchers, Robotics Software Engineers, Mission Operators (drone/ground systems), and Business Development for air dominance [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/scoutai).

## Sources
1. [scoutco.ai](https://scoutco.ai/) – company homepage, technology overview
2. [scoutco.ai/company](https://scoutco.ai/company) – mission, leadership, funding, partners
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/scout-ai-official) – headcount, growth, financials, talent sources
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/scout-ai-scoutcoai) – company culture, perks, job listings
5. [greenhouse.io](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/scoutai) – active job postings (23 roles)

## Other roles at Scout AI

- [GTM Customer Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-customer-engineer-scout-ai-remote-2qj02w51qyd9)
- [Senior Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mechanical-engineer-scout-ai-sunnyvale-be8f8aqbcec4) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Drone Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/drone-technician-scout-ai-sunnyvale-a2t93vt0b5qk) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/manufacturing-engineer-scout-ai-sunnyvale-n6es17h6swqx) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Senior Embedded Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-embedded-software-engineer-scout-ai-sunnyvale-6mzt9hkp6k76) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineer-scout-ai-sunnyvale-y9xbcktdjer7) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Mission Operator - UAV](https://feeny.ai/job/mission-operator-uav-scout-ai-paso-robles-3nfpevdqc4m9) — Paso Robles, CA
- [Staff Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-agent-harnessing-scout-ai-us-sunnyvale-xpeb1agamx5m) — US Sunnyvale, CA
- [Senior IT Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-it-systems-engineer-scout-ai-us-sunnyvale-8bedy1s9fyv8) — US Sunnyvale, CA
- [Vehicle Integration Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/vehicle-integration-technician-scout-ai-sunnyvale-ydhss2kymh0x) — Sunnyvale, CA