Software Engineer (Mid-Level) - Data Pipelines & Event Processing

The Work: Join a Mission That Matters

Torch.AI is building the AI Control Layer for the United States Government.

Not another dashboard. Not another workflow app. Not another black-box model glued to a PowerPoint.

The AI Control Layer is foundational data and intelligence infrastructure that makes sense of messy, adversarial, multi-domain data at machine speed. Commanders, analysts, and operators can act with clarity when it matters most.

Our platform—ORCUS (data movement), NEXUS (deep semantic vectorization), and HALO (graph-native reasoning)—is accredited, deployed, and operating today across enterprise clouds and tactical edge environments. We support multi-INT fusion, predictive movement analysis, targeting workflows, anomaly detection, and decision support for cross-domain operations including ISR, information advantage, joint effects, and force protection.

We are seeking candidates who want to build systems that operate under real constraints: degraded visibility, adversarial mis/disinformation, intermittent connectivity, low-SWaP hardware, and seconds-to-decision timelines.

This is operational AI.
It ships. It runs. It gets used.

If you’re driven to strengthen U.S. defense readiness and protect national interests, Torch.AI offers meaningful impact at national scale.

What Makes Torch.AI Different

We believe the government must own its data, its decision environment, and its reasoning infrastructure.

Our AI Control Layer increases the value of existing systems of record rather than replacing them. We measure performance by accuracy, latency, and efficiency, not slideware benchmarks.

We are craftsmen.
We build with intention.
We ship with discipline.

You’ll collaborate with engineers, data experts, veterans, and mission practitioners. You’ll own meaningful work, move quickly, and see your systems deployed in production, often within weeks.

We are fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and mission-driven. Every day is a new puzzle.

The Type of Candidates Who Thrive

Torch.AI is not for everyone.

People who succeed here:

• Are builders, not curators. They ship and iterate.
• Are comfortable with messy data, unclear requirements, and real mission constraints without always having the luxury of clear specs.
• Respect operators and prioritize utility over elegance.
• Care about explainability and determinism because real decisions demand auditability.
• Move quickly but understand security boundaries and accreditation realities.
• Measure success by operational impact, not model novelty.

If you need perfect conditions and months of runway, this may not be the right place.

If you want to see your work used in production and feel the weight of that responsibility, we should talk.

Security Clearance

Some roles require an active Secret, Top Secret, or Top Secret/SCI clearance. Where required, candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain the appropriate clearance level.

U.S. citizenship is required for all positions. Torch.AI does not sponsor employment visas.

If you do not currently hold a clearance but are eligible, sponsorship may be available depending on role and mission requirements.

Work Location

Most roles are based at our headquarters in Leawood, KS. Some hybrid/remote positions across the Arlington, VA, Washington, DC, and Maryland (DMV) region are available. Limited travel (<10%) may be required for some roles.

Compensation, Benefits, Incentives

We offer competitive, performance-aligned compensation tied to technical depth, clearance level, and mission impact.

Total Rewards Include:

• Competitive base salary
• Quarterly performance bonuses
• Equity participation within the first 12 months
• Unlimited PTO + 11 paid company holidays
• Professional development in a high-growth, mission-driven environment
• Weekly in-office catering at HQ

Benefits:

• 401(k) plan (no current employer match)
• PPO, HSA, and TRICARE Supplement medical options
• Above-market HSA contributions
• HSA, FSA, and Dependent Care FSA options
• Dental and vision plans above national averages
• Employer-paid life insurance (1× salary)
• Employer-paid Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
• Voluntary Accident, Critical Illness, and Hospital Indemnity coverage
• Up to $300/month in tax-advantaged commuter benefits

Torch.AI is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer committed to building a team that reflects the mission we serve.

If you want to build AI systems that move from ingestion to actionable insight, and know exactly why they produced the answer they did, we should talk.

## Role Overview

This role focuses on building production-grade software systems that ingest, process, and enrich large volumes of real-world data to support mission-critical decision making. You will develop scalable data pipelines and backend services that transform diverse, multi-source information into structured, actionable insights.

The work emphasizes reliability, adaptability, and operational security. Systems are designed to run continuously, handle evolving data sources, and operate within controlled environments that require careful handling of access patterns, attribution, and compliance constraints.

Responsibilities

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and maintain backend services and pipelines that acquire and process data from diverse data sources.
• Develop automated data access workflows using APIs, web interfaces, and distributed systems while adhering to controlled access and usage constraints.
• Implement data transformation, enrichment, and normalization processes to support downstream analytics and mission applications.
• Build systems that monitor and respond to real-world events by collecting, correlating, and updating relevant data streams.
• Develop data fusion capabilities that combine multiple sources to improve data completeness, context, and usability.
• Apply operational security practices to data acquisition and processing workflows, including controlled access patterns, traffic shaping, and protection of system and infrastructure.
• Implement safeguards that reduce attribution risk and ensure responsible interaction with external data sources.
• Collaborate with platform, data, and security teams to ensure systems meet compliance, auditability, and mission requirements.
• Optimize performance, scalability, and resilience of data acquisition and processing systems.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployments, and automated testing workflows.
• Troubleshoot production issues and perform root-cause analysis across distributed systems.
• Document system behavior, data flows, and integration patterns to support maintainability and operational use.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering standards and best practices.

Core Skills & Qualifications

• B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 3–6 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong proficiency in Python (preferred) or similar backend programming languages.
• Experience building production systems for data ingestion, integration, or processing.
• Experience working with APIs, automated data access techniques, and distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of data pipeline patterns, including ETL/ELT workflows.
• Experience working with structured and semi-structured data formats (JSON, CSV, Parquet).
• Familiarity with SQL and NoSQL databases and query optimization.
• Experience designing systems that operate reliably under variable data availability and latency conditions.
• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS preferred) and containerization (Docker).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern software development practices.
• Understanding of secure software development practices and controlled data access patterns.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to operate in fast-paced, mission-driven environments.

Additional Valuable Experience

• Experience with workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, NiFi) or similar systems.
• Experience with streaming or event-driven architectures (Kafka or equivalent).
• Familiarity with large-scale data ingestion, indexing, or search systems.
• Experience working with geospatial, temporal, or multi-source datasets.
• Exposure to data enrichment, entity resolution, or relationship mapping techniques.
• Experience implementing controlled or privacy-aware data acquisition techniques.
• Familiarity with infrastructure patterns that support identity protection, request management, or traffic routing in distributed systems.
• Experience supporting defense, intelligence, or other regulated environments.
• Familiarity with distributed systems and microservices architectures.
• Exposure to observability tooling (logging, monitoring, metrics).