Staff Software Engineer (Attack & User Emulation Team) at SimSpace Corporation
$185,000–$260,000
Jul 14, 2026
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Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor engineering role on a team that builds containerized microservices powering cyber-range simulations — specifically the services that replicate offensive attacks and user behavior. The position combines hands-on architecture and coding in Kotlin/Java with technical leadership: setting direction, mentoring engineers, running design reviews, and coordinating API contracts with partner teams. It suits an experienced distributed-systems engineer with a background in event-driven architectures and some familiarity with offensive security concepts.
Staff level · 8+ years · Remote · Full-time
Pay in the description: $185,000–$260,000
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 5,100 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 3,050–7,600
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
Java and Kotlin are listed together as interchangeable OOP language options in the requirements section ('Java or Kotlin'); both are emitted as separate skills with each as the other's alternative, since the JD treats them as substitutes rather than a combined stack.
Kafka and RabbitMQ are listed as interchangeable examples of event-driven messaging systems in the requirements section; Kafka is used as the primary with RabbitMQ as the alternative.
Spring Boot appears in the opening role description and the 'Our Tech Stack' narrative section rather than in the formal qualifications block; it is treated as preferred stack context rather than a hard gate.
REST/API design is inferred from the explicit requirements around 'API design, integration, and best practices' — no specific protocol is named beyond that, but REST is the canonical form for microservices API work described here.
Offensive security knowledge and networking concepts (DNS, TCP/IP, routing protocols) are listed in the formal qualifications block and are treated as hard gates.
The role explicitly calls for Staff-level scope: cross-team technical influence, mentoring senior engineers, setting technical direction, and owning end-to-end architecture — consistent with the Staff band.
Caller marked this a fully-remote role — scored against the national candidate pool.
Read the full posting
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