Staff Backend Engineer, Collections Platform (Defense Tech)

Overview

• Staff-level backend role (8+ years) leading the systems that collect and process the hard-to-access open-source data behind the company's products.
• AEP Hawaii is hiring on behalf of a profitable, venture-backed defense tech unicorn building agentic AI for national security and the Indo-Pacific mission.
• This is a NON-CLEARED role. No active security clearance is required to apply or to start.
• We are specifically looking for commercial software engineers from 0-to-1 startups (Seed through Series D). Prior defense or government experience is NOT required.

The Opportunity

• Technical leadership over the data collection platform that forms the foundation of the company's advantage.
• Bring commercial, startup-speed engineering into defense: small agile team, high ownership, and products used by real operators on the front lines.
• Fast-growing, profitable company (roughly $3M to $80M ARR in three years) with a product-first, user-empathy engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, resilient systems that collect data from many online sources and run 24x7.
• Build pipelines and ETL that turn messy data streams into structured, agent-ready information for product teams.
• Make and clearly communicate architecture trade-offs as systems scale.
• Partner with product, platform and mission teams to translate user needs into collection solutions.
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across the team.

Qualifications

• 8+ years as a backend engineer, ideally at a startup or high-growth commercial company.
• Strong distributed systems experience; proficiency in Python (TypeScript a plus), AWS, and multiple database technologies.
• Experience with web scraping, browser automation, or large-scale data collection, or a strong desire to learn.
• Strong communication and ability to work autonomously with incomplete information.
• Preferred: ETL with large-scale messy data, Temporal, instrumentation/monitoring, agentic or LLM tool-call systems.
• Non-cleared: no clearance needed. Commercial startup background (Seed to Series D) strongly preferred over defense-only backgrounds.

Engagement Details

• Compensation: $150,000 – $215,000 + equity.
• Full-time, direct hire with the client. Remote (US).
• Non-cleared: no active clearance required. U.S. Person status required (access to U.S.-only data systems).
• Optional travel to meet users and mission teams.
• Benefits include health/dental/vision, unlimited PTO, 401(k) match, WeWork access, wellbeing stipends, and fully paid parental leave.
• Equal opportunity employer.