Tagup

Senior Software Engineer at Tagup (California)

Tagup· California·

Role details

Work type
Hybrid
Employment
Full-Time

Job description

Tagup is a Series A defense technology company, founded at MIT, that is delivering logistics decision advantage with next-generation AI. It all started on a balcony at MIT, with an idea about monitoring asset data via the cloud using passive RFID tags (TAG) - sent up (UP) to the cloud.

Our product Manifest— is the operating system for the physical world. We’re a team of engineers and data scientists driven by our mission to use reinforcement learning and probabilistic modeling to optimize military logistics and critical infrastructure, ensuring our customers get the best performance they can out of the resources.

You make a real world impact where your code won't just optimize a shopping cart or a compute primitive. It will optimize supply chains for the U.S. military and prevent catastrophic failures in critical infrastructure. We do not use proprietary tooling or build systems and deployment pipelines. We build on modern, open standards you can apply in any space. You won't just own a slice of a service. You will own entire architectural domains—from API design and data modeling to deployment and monitoring strategies. You’ll work directly with PhD-level data scientists and former special operators. We value high-velocity decision-making over "approval chains."

The Role

You know how to operate at scale. You live by ownership and bias for action. But working within the confines of a massive company or cloud provider, your scope is often limited to a single service, proprietary internal tooling, and endless operational reviews.

This is a "0 to 1" role. We don't need you to maintain a legacy service with 10 years of tech debt. We need you to architect the core platform that ingests, processes, and acts on billions of data points from the physical world. It's an opportunity to escape the service team grind.

What You’ll Build

  • Tagup AI Agent: Optimize complex NL queries and time-series data storage to ensure sub-second latency for our AI models.
  • Core Architecture: Design and implement high-performance REST APIs and microservices that power the Manifest platform.
  • Data Ingestion at Scale: Build the "nervous system" of our platform—robust ETL pipelines that ingest high-frequency sensor data from diverse industrial assets.
  • Operational Excellence: Bring your "Bar Raiser" mentality to our infrastructure. Implement sophisticated monitoring, alarming, and automated CI/CD pipelines to ensure 99.99% availability without the bureaucracy.

Required Skills

  • You treat architecture as an evolving being that morphs as customers scale and storage/compute/security needs change.
  • You understand "Scale" vs. "Complexity": You know that scale isn't just about TPS; it's about handling complex data relationships.
  • You want to mentor: You are ready to take the "Tech Lead" mantle, mentoring junior engineers and setting the standard for code quality and design patterns.

The Tech Stack

  • AI: pyro, torch, MCP, Langchain using Claude.
  • Languages: Python (FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Pandas) – We value your software engineering fundamentals and ability to learn over which specific languages you have experience in.
  • Data: PostgreSQL, Redis.
  • Infra: AWS (EC2, RDS, EKS), Kubernetes, Terraform.

Tagup is an equal opportunity employer and individuals seeking employment with us are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Citizenship: Due to the nature of our work with the U.S. Department of Defense, applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor visas at this time.

Why work at Tagup

  • Mission-driven impact: Directly contributes to U.S. military readiness and logistics decision advantage in critical theaters like the Indo-Pacific. The work has tangible national security implications.
  • Rapid growth trajectory: 53.6% headcount growth YoY, 24 open roles, and significant contract wins signal a company on a steep upward trajectory—opportunity for career growth and impact.
  • Strong technical culture: Founded at MIT CSAIL; tech stack includes Python, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Kubernetes, MLOps tools, and generative AI. Employs Lead ML Engineers and Data Scientists, indicating a deep engineering focus.
  • Office locations: HQ in New York, with additional offices in Boston, San Francisco, and Somerville—offering geographic flexibility.
  • Current hiring focus: Forward Deployed Industrial Engineer, Defense Logistics AI; Product Manager; Partnerships Lead; Air Force Lead; Director of Business Development—roles that combine technical depth with mission impact.

Application questions