Who we are

Helsing is a defence AI company. Our mission is to protect our democracies. We aim to achieve technological leadership, so that open societies can continue to make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. 

As democracies, we believe we have a special responsibility to be thoughtful about the development and deployment of powerful technologies like AI. We take this responsibility seriously. 

We are an ambitious and committed team of engineers, AI specialists and customer-facing programme managers. We are looking for mission-driven people to join our European teams – and apply their skills to solve the most complex and impactful problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that welcomes healthy debates on the use of technology in defence, its benefits, and its ethical implications. 

The role

Software only matters when it is actively being used to make a difference. As a Rapid Capabilities Engineer, you will be at the heart of this - taking our state-of-the-art software and deploying and integrating it into complex systems in non-traditional environments. You’ll be engaging directly with the users of that software and building critical last-mile functionality crucial for their, and Helsing's, success.

RCEs work on the proverbial final 20% - the last stretch that makes all the difference. We are looking for energised Software Engineers who care deeply about delivery and the end users who use the software that they’re building.

The day-to-day

• Collaborate closely with our product and commercial teams; discovering and formalising customer requirements.

• Build and design critical functionality on top of foundational building blocks to enable one or many deliveries.

• Plan and lead the development and releases of new Software deployments for our customers.

• Monitor and deploy software directly to customer managed environments ranging from classified on-prem bare-metal clusters to several different cloud providers.

• Embed within a Software Engineering team to advocate for and work on the features your users want to see.

• Identify bugs in core services, fix them, and ship the latest features and updates direct to every deployment.

• Travel to customer sites for user-interviews, co-building sessions and co-use of the software deeply understand their needs and build your user empathy.

Nothing is impossible for an RCE; no matter the stack or environment, you dive straight in, building, patching, deploying, and constantly contributing to the key outcomes of the business.

You should apply if you

• Have a degree in computer science, software engineering, electrical engineering, or other relevant fields.

• Possess strong communication skills, written and verbally.

• Enjoy understanding and breaking down technical concepts, and sharing your learnings with others.

• Are comfortable with back-end programming languages like Python, Rust, C++, Java, or similar. 

• Experience with container-based, cloud-native and edge application architectures.

• Are eager to go where you’re needed to get things done. 

Note: We operate at an intersection where women, as well as other minority groups, are systemically under-represented. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications; ability and impact cannot be summarised in a few bullet points.

Nice to Have

• An experience or interest in a technical customer-facing role.

• An interest in system architecture and infrastructure.

• Experience with production ML systems.

Join Helsing and work with world-leading experts in their fields 

• Helsing’s work is important. You’ll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing both ethical and geopolitical concerns. 

• The work is unique. We operate in a domain that has highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, and where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. You will face unique Engineering and AI challenges that make a meaningful impact in the world. 

• Our work frequently takes us right up to the state of the art in technical innovation, be it reinforcement learning, distributed systems, generative AI, or deployment infrastructure. The defence industry is entering the most exciting phase of the technological development curve. Advances in our field of world are not incremental: Helsing is part of, and often leading, historic leaps forward. 

• In our domain, success is a matter of order-of-magnitude improvements and novel capabilities. This means we take bets, aim high, and focus on big opportunities. Despite being a relatively young company, Helsing has already been selected for multiple significant government contracts.  

• We actively encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted (and encouraged) to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, and to focus on outcomes, not conformity. At Helsing you will have a say in how we (and you!) work, the opportunity to engage on what does and doesn’t work, and to take ownership of aspects of our culture that you care deeply about. 

What we offer

• A focus on outcomes, not time-tracking

• Competitive compensation and stock options

• Relocation support

• Social and education allowances

• Regular company events and all-hands to bring together employees as one team across Europe

• A hands-on onboarding program (affectionately labelled “Infraduction”), in which you will be building tooling and applications to be used across the company. This is your opportunity to learn our tech stack, explore the company, and learn how we get things done - all whilst working with other engineering teams from day one 

#LI-DNI

Helsing is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.