Forterra
Aerospace & DefenseDirect Rippling career site

Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration

Pay
$145,000 – $165,000 per year
Location
East Palo Alto, CA · On-site
Job type
Full-time
Level
Director
Experience
4+ years
Education
Bachelor's degree
Listed
30 days ago

Skills & highlights for this role

  • gRPC
  • Protocol Buffers
  • distributed systems
  • REST APIs

Also useful

  • DDS
  • MQTT
  • Kafka
  • CMake

About the Position

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to focus on Fabric integrations and developer-facing APIs. You will help make Fabric easier to adopt across Forterra's products and by external partners, building the interfaces, adapters, SDKs, tools, and documentation that connect Fabric to real-world systems.

This role is ideal for a generalist engineer who enjoys working across system boundaries. You will partner directly with teams building autonomy, command and control, networking, web applications, and vehicle software to understand their needs and deliver reliable integrations. You should be comfortable moving between API design, backend services, data modeling, distributed systems, testing, deployment, and technical documentation.

This is a hands-on role with significant ownership and cross-team influence. You will help shape how developers and integrators interact with Fabric while contributing to the evolution of the platform itself.

What you'll do

  • Design and build APIs, SDKs, adapters, and integration tools that enable applications and partner systems to use Fabric.
  • Define clear interfaces for registering, discovering, querying, subscribing to, and replicating mission-critical data.
  • Build integrations between Fabric and systems such as autonomy services, command-and-control applications, operator interfaces, vehicle platforms, web applications, and external partner software.
  • Develop and maintain APIs using technologies such as gRPC, REST, Protocol Buffers, or comparable interface technologies.
  • Establish patterns for schema evolution, versioning, compatibility, serialization, authentication, authorization, and error handling.
  • Translate real-world integration requirements into practical technical designs and production-ready implementations.
  • Work directly with internal teams and external integrators to troubleshoot issues, close capability gaps, and improve the developer experience.
  • Build testable, observable, and maintainable services that operate across distributed and intermittently connected environments.
  • Create integration examples, reference implementations, automated test harnesses, and developer documentation.
  • Improve tooling and workflows for local development, simulation, integration testing, deployment, and field support.
  • Collaborate with platform, autonomy, networking, TerraLink, ATAK, web, and product teams to establish consistent integration patterns.
  • Contribute to Fabric's technical roadmap, architecture, and long-term platform strategy.
  • Participate in design reviews and communicate technical decisions clearly to both engineering and integration audiences.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 4+ years of professional software engineering experience building production software.
  • Strong experience designing and implementing APIs, integrations, backend services, or developer platforms.
  • Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as C++, Rust, Go, Python, Java, Kotlin, or TypeScript.
  • Experience with API and interface technologies such as gRPC, REST, GraphQL, Protocol Buffers, or similar.
  • Understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including service communication, replication, consistency, failure handling, concurrency, and recovery.
  • Experience working with data models, serialization formats, schema evolution, and backward compatibility.
  • Strong testing fundamentals, including unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end testing.
  • Experience developing and debugging software in Linux-based environments.
  • Ability to work directly with partner teams or customers to understand requirements and deliver practical solutions.
  • Proven ability to take technical projects from concept through production.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain complex systems clearly.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience building SDKs, plugins, adapters, middleware, or developer-facing platforms.
  • Experience integrating with robotics, autonomy, command-and-control, defense, automotive, or other edge systems.
  • Familiarity with publish/subscribe or message-oriented middleware such as DDS, ZeroMQ, MQTT, NATS, Kafka, or custom transports.
  • Networking experience, including UDP, TCP, unicast, multicast, routing, or operation over constrained and unreliable links.
  • Experience building software that operates across disconnected, intermittently connected, or bandwidth constrained environments.
  • Familiarity with authentication and authorization models for distributed systems.
  • Experience with cloud and edge deployment technologies, containers, CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code.
  • Experience with observability tools for logging, metrics, tracing, and distributed-system diagnostics.
  • Familiarity with CMake, Conan, Bazel, Cargo, or comparable build and package-management systems.
  • Experience working with geospatial, telemetry, sensor, or mission data.
  • Experience supporting external developers or integrators through technical documentation, examples, and hands-on troubleshooting.
  • Active security clearance or ability to obtain one.

Pay and benefits

US Salary Range $145,000 - $165,000 (Arlington, VA) $155,000 - $175,000 (Palo Alto, CA)

The salary range for this role is an estimate and is based on a wide variety of compensation factors. The salary offered to candidates will vary based on a variety of factors including (but not limited to) relevant work experience, education, specialized training, critical expertise, training, and more. Equity in Forterra is included in most of our full-time, high-demand roles and is therefore considered part of Forterra’s overall compensation package. In addition to base salary and equity, Forterra offers competitive benefits for full-time employees including:

Premium Healthcare Benefits

  • Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
  • Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
  • Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
  • Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
  • A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
  • A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
  • Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
  • 401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.
  • Your recruiter will be able to share more information about our salary and benefits offering during the hiring process.

Clearance Eligibility

This position may require eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. For more information about U.S. Security Clearances:

To see Forterra’s candidate data privacy policy, please visit Forterra Legal | Job Applicant Privacy Notice.

  • About Company ---

About Fabric

Fabric is Forterra's distributed systems platform for registering, discovering, and replicating mission-critical data across dynamic mesh network topologies. Fabric enables interoperability between autonomous vehicles, operators, services, and partner systems across unreliable, bandwidth-constrained networks.

Fabric is foundational infrastructure used by multiple internal teams and external integrators. It connects autonomy systems, command-and-control applications, operator interfaces, vehicles, and partner technologies into a common operational ecosystem.

About Forterra

At Forterra, we are unleashing autonomy at scale to transform the battlefield. Our mission is to build the foundational platforms that enable an intelligent ecosystem to coordinate, adapt, and execute with speed and precision even in the uncertainty and disruption of modern conflict. In an era marked by rapid technological change and evolving threats, we design for flexibility, survivability, and operational dominance.

Forterra delivers weapons, sensors, and battlefield effects through integrated autonomous networks reaching operational areas faster, safer, and without placing human lives at risk. Our systems operate with distributed control, dynamic routing, and real-time responsiveness, enabling sustained advantage across complex mission environments.

Read the original posting

From Forterra's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 10, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.

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Common questions

What is the salary for the Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration role at Forterra?

The Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration posting at Forterra states compensation of $145,000 – $165,000 per year. It is listed as a full-time position. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on Forterra's official career site.

Where is the Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration job at Forterra located?

This Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration position at Forterra is located in East Palo Alto, CA (On-site). Always check Forterra's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.

What qualifications are required for Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration at Forterra?

For the Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration role, Forterra highlights 4+ years of relevant experience; a bachelor's degree; experience with gRPC, Protocol Buffers, distributed systems, REST APIs. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.

How do I apply for the Senior Software Engineer, Platform Integration position at Forterra?

This listing links directly to Forterra's Rippling application page. You can apply directly on Forterra's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the Rippling application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.