Senior Software Engineer - AI/ML R&D

About CoVar

CoVar is a small, mission-driven AI/ML R&D software company based in Durham, NC and McLean, VA. We build advanced software and machine learning systems that help the Department of Defense detect threats in high-stakes environments and enable biomedical researchers to accelerate discoveries that save lives. Our team is composed of curious, passionate engineers who care deeply about using AI to solve real-world problems that matter.

About this position

We are looking for a motivated, detail-oriented Software Engineer who thrives in an environment where reading, understanding, and improving complex codebases is just as important as writing new code. In this role, you will develop and maintain real-time, computationally intensive applications involving data processing, real-time communications, and machine-learning algorithm integration.

You’ll work closely with a team of ML engineers and software developers, contribute to system architecture and performance optimization, and help ensure our tools are robust, efficient, and production ready. You will have the opportunity to work on meaningful, high-impact projects in a close-knit engineering team. If you enjoy building systems end-to-end, optimizing performance, and understanding how software interacts with hardware at a deep level, you’ll fit right in.

Important Note:

This is a software engineering role and not a prompt engineering role. Candidates with strong LLM prompting skills but limited understanding of software engineering fundamentals will not be successful here.

Minimum qualifications

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• B.S. in Computer Science or related field, preferably M.S., Ph.D, and/or 3+ years of experience
• Expertise in Python with a minimum of two years of demonstrated hands-on professional development experience and exposure to scientific/computational libraries such as NumPy, SciPy, pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, etc.
• Experience developing real-time, computationally-focused applications
• Working knowledge of SQL and experience with one or more of MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite
• Strong fundamental understanding of computing hardware architectures and how they influence software architectural decisions
• Experience with software development processes, including version control, documentation, testing, and code review
• Excellent technical communication skills and a customer-service mindset
• Ability to work in Durham, NC (relocation assistance available)
• Eligibility for US security clearance (US citizenship is required)
  
  

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Preferred qualifications

• Linux application development
• Experience with embedded systems or deploying AI/ML solutions on edge hardware (highly desirable)
• Familiarity with real-time systems, edge hardware optimization, and performance profiling
• Experience with signal processing, pattern recognition, image processing, and/or machine learning techniques
• Prior Department of Defense project experience
  
  

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Benefits

• Competitive salary, cash bonus, equity structure, and 401k with employer contributions
• Excellent health care coverage, including dental and vision plans
• Parental leave
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Flexible work schedule
• Tuition support
• PTO and paid holidays
  
  

Visit us: www.covar.com