Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Systems at Palantir Technologies
Washington
$145,000–$200,000from the description
Jul 21, 2026
Washington
Jul 23, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior engineering role focused on building command-and-control and autonomous systems software for military and civilian operational missions. Day-to-day work spans developing sensor-processing algorithms, LLM/AI-driven decision systems, and integrations with unmanned vehicles, swarms, and edge hardware. Suited to experienced engineers with a background in robotics, embedded systems, or autonomous platforms who hold or can obtain a US security clearance.
Senior level · 5+ years · Bachelor's required · Secret clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
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
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)
The four languages — Rust, Python, C++, Java — are listed together under 'What We Require' as a single OR requirement ('Strong proficiency in Rust, Python, C++, or Java'). They are emitted as one skill group with each as an alternative to the others; a candidate needs strong proficiency in at least one.
The clearance requirement states 'Active US Security clearance or eligibility and willingness to obtain a US Security clearance.' This is treated as a hard gate but the specific level is not named. The role involves military/tactical autonomous systems, which typically requires at minimum a Secret clearance; the clearance requirement is set to Secret as a conservative floor — the actual level may be higher.
Degree requirement: the JD lists 'Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related fields' under 'What We Require' with no 'or equivalent experience' escape clause, so Bachelors is set as the minimum hard-required degree.
LLMs, AI/ML, and sensor processing appear under 'What We Value' (a preferred/desirable section), so they are marked as preferred.
No specific office location is named in the posting. Palantir's language indicates an in-person/onsite expectation ('better together', 'required to work from an office' for onsite postings), so remote is set to false.
Total years minimum is set to 5 (from '5+ years of professional software development experience' under 'What We Require'). The 2-year architecture and 2-year mentorship/tech-lead requirements are role-level gates captured in the overall years minimum context; they name no specific technology so they are not emitted as skills.
Requires a Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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