---
title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing at Scout AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-agent-harnessing-scout-ai-us-sunnyvale-xpeb1agamx5m'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Staff Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing at Scout AI

- **Company:** Scout AI
- **Location:** US Sunnyvale, CA
- **Compensation:** $230k–$380k
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/scoutai/jobs/5365581008

## 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

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Agent Harnessing team, you will build the core architecture that allows AI agents to interact with and control complex, real-world physical systems. This spans agent orchestration, tool integration, low-latency communication layers, and execution environments designed as a platform that Scout AI engineers can extend and depend on.

## Responsibilities

- Designing and advancing the agent harness (agent loop, tools, prompts, execution environment, capabilities) used across Scout AI's agentic stack
- Integrating fullstack software with physical hardware systems and AI agents, ensuring robust, low-latency communication across complex pipelines
- Building simulation environments and video-game-like frameworks that allow agents to be tested and trained before physical deployment
- Owning the connectors between AI models and real-world systems, the layer that translates model output into physical action
- Fine-tune frontier AI models and build the data acquisition pipelines that feed the training infrastructure powering our agents
- Work shoulder-to-shoulder with warfighters to turn capability requests into production-ready agentic systems

Qualification

- 10+ years of full-stack engineering experience (startup or high-ownership environment preferred)
- You have built complex agentic products or infrastructure—agent loops, orchestration systems, tool-use frameworks. You have strong opinions on model and agent behavior
- You are a systems-oriented fullstack engineer with hands-on experience integrating software with physical hardware or low-level systems
- You have exposure to simulation environments, game engines (Unreal, Unity, Isaac Sim), or robotics middleware (ROS/ROS2)
- You have strong SWE fundamentals—architecture, distributed systems, real-time pipelines—and love shipping production systems
- 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

## 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 $230,000—$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

- [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
- [GTM Senior Program Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-senior-program-manager-scout-ai-sunnyvale-california-7es52hv9gwga) — Sunnyvale California, United States
- [Senior IT Systems Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-it-systems-engineer-scout-ai-sunnyvale-8bedy1s9fyv8) — Sunnyvale, CA
- [Vehicle Integration Technician](https://feeny.ai/job/vehicle-integration-technician-scout-ai-sunnyvale-california-ydhss2kymh0x) — Sunnyvale California, United States
- [Senior AI Researcher](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ai-researcher-scout-ai-us-sunnyvale-zqbb607t3a7q) — US Sunnyvale, CA