Software Engineer

Overview

At Sift, we’re redefining how modern machines are built, tested, and operated. Our platform gives engineers real-time observability over high-frequency telemetry—eliminating bottlenecks and enabling faster, more reliable development.

Sift was born from our work at SpaceX on Dragon, Falcon, Starlink, and Starship—where scaling telemetry, debugging flight systems, and ensuring mission reliability demanded new infrastructure. Founded by a team from SpaceX, Google, and Palantir, Sift is built for mission-critical systems where precision and scalability are non-negotiable.

As an early engineer at Sift, you won’t just write code—you’ll help define the architecture, shape the product, and influence the culture of a company focused on solving real engineering problems. If you’re looking for complex technical challenges and the opportunity to build foundational systems supporting complex machines from the ground up, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities

Design and build a high-performance, scalable, end-to-end data platform for hardware engineering

Design and build a delightful user interface for visualizing and transforming millions of data points

Work closely with customers, including hardware engineers, to understand their problems and find efficient solutions

Help define engineering culture, standards, and processes

Collaborate with peers on architecture, design, and code reviews

The Skillset You\'ll Bring

Bachelor\'s degree in computer science, data science, engineering, math, physics, or STEM discipline

3+ years of experience in software engineering or data engineering

Experience designing and building large-scale, distributed systems or web applications using Go, Python, or an equivalent language

Self-starter, able to navigate ambiguity and changing priorities

Team player with excellent communication skills and a collaborative work ethic

Bonus Points

Experience working with in-stream data processing and analytics using Apache Kafka, Flink, Beam, or similar

Experience with relational and non-relational databases, e.g. PostgreSQL, Druid, Pinot, Timescale, or similar

Experience with data exploration tools like Grafana, Jupyter Notebooks, Metabase, PowerBI, or similar

Strong understanding of DevOps principles : version control, testing, continuous integration, build, deployment, and monitoring

Front-end experience in React or a similar JavaScript framework

Engineering At Sift

You\'ll have the opportunity to help evolve and scale our platform because we\'re still in the early stages of building the product. Relevant technologies include :

Web frontend & backend : ECharts, Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Protobuf, Radix, React, Redux, and TypeScript

Data : Arrow, DataFusion, Flink, Parquet, and Rust

Infrastructure : Argo CD, AWS, Docker, GitHub Actions, Grafana, Kubernetes, Kustomize, Linux, Prometheus, and Terragrunt

Location

Sift’s headquarters is in El Segundo, CA . We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays —and come together for a full week every two months. While we prefer team members to be local, we’re open to relocating candidates to LA or considering remote work from the San Francisco area for the right candidate.

Salary range : $150,000 - $200,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.

Eligibility

US Person Required : Must be a U.S. Citizen or Green Card Holder due to ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) compliance requirements.

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