Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing
Scout AI is hiring a Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing in Sunnyvale, United States. It pays $160k-$280k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Scout AI.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- The posting mentions AI agents among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- Scout AI has 24 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
The future of defense will be decided by those who field intelligent machines at scale. At Scout AI, we’re developing Fury, the first robotic foundation model for defense, to give U.S. forces overwhelming, adaptable, and autonomous power across every domain. Fury enables human operators to command fleets of robots through natural language, and empowers those machines to sense, decide, and act together as one. This mission will ask everything of us: urgency, precision, and relentless work.
The Role
As a Software Engineer on the Agent Harnessing team, you will build the core architecture that allows AI agents to interact with and control complex, real-world physical systems. This spans agent orchestration, tool integration, low-latency communication layers, and execution environments—designed as a platform that Scout AI engineers can extend and depend on.
Responsibilities
Designing and advancing the agent harness (agent loop, tools, prompts, execution environment, capabilities) used across Scout AI's agentic stack
Integrating fullstack software with physical hardware systems and AI agents, ensuring robust, low-latency communication across complex pipelines
Building simulation environments and video-game-like frameworks that allow agents to be tested and trained before physical deployment
Owning the connectors between AI models and real-world systems, the layer that translates model output into physical action
Fine-tune frontier AI models and build the data acquisition pipelines that feed the training infrastructure powering our agents
Work shoulder-to-shoulder with warfighters to turn capability requests into production-ready agentic systems
Qualification
5+ years of full-stack engineering experience (startup or high-ownership environment preferred)
You have built complex agentic products or infrastructure: agent loops, orchestration systems, tool-use frameworks. You have strong opinions on model and agent behavior
You are a systems-oriented fullstack engineer with hands-on experience integrating software with physical hardware or low-level systems
You have exposure to simulation environments, game engines (Unreal, Unity, Isaac Sim), or robotics middleware (ROS/ROS2)
You have strong SWE fundamentals, architecture, distributed systems, real-time pipelines, and love shipping production systems
Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities
Passion about defense of the United States and its allies
May be expected to obtain and hold a U.S. Top Secret security clearance
Why Join Scout
Work on the world’s most important frontier, ensuring U.S. and allied dominance in the age of intelligent machines
Be a core part of a team building the first defense-specific robotic foundation model
Collaborate with some of the top engineers in autonomy, AI, and national security
See your work deployed on real systems
Help define the future of intelligent defense systems
Backed by Draper Associates, Booz Allen Ventures, and other top investors
Benefits
Competitive Cash Compensation
Meaningful equity
Premium medical, dental, and vision plans with $0 paycheck contribution
Competitive PTO and company holiday calendar
Catered lunch daily and fully stocked kitchen
EV charging
Relocation assistance (depending on role eligibility)
How we rate this
Software Engineer, Agent Harnessing at Scout AI rates 94 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $160k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 5% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
- Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: AI agents. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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