Senior Staff Software Systems Engineer

Vantor is forging the new frontier of spatial intelligence, helping decision makers and operators navigate what’s happening now and shape what’s coming next. Vantor is a place for problem solvers, changemakers, and go-getters—where people are working together to help our customers see the world differently, and in doing so, be seen differently. Come be part of a mission, not just a job, where you can: Shape your own future, build the next big thing, and change the world. To be eligible for this position, you must be a U.S. Person, defined as a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, Asylee, or Refugee. Export Control/ITAR: Certain roles may be subject to U.S. export control laws, requiring U.S. person status as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). Please review the job details below. Role scope: Product-level technical authority across multiple engineering teams, responsible for architecture, integration, technical tradeoffs, and delivery of a product or major product evolution. The Role We are seeking a Senior Staff Software Systems Engineer to serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution. You will lead architecture, systems engineering, integration strategy, and technical execution across multiple engineering teams to ensure we deliver scalable, reliable, and operationally successful software systems. This role bridges Product and Engineering by validating customer needs, translating them into system architecture, and guiding technical decisions throughout the product lifecycle. You will influence through technical credibility, align multiple teams around shared engineering decisions, and improve how the organization makes technical tradeoffs. Success requires balancing customer outcomes, technical excellence, delivery commitments, and long-term maintainability while leading complex, cross-functional initiatives. What You'll Do • Serve as the technical authority for a product or major product evolution. • Define system architecture and technical direction spanning multiple engineering teams. • Partner with Product Management to validate customer needs and ensure planned capabilities solve the right customer problem. • Lead architecture reviews, trade studies, and major technical decisions affecting product evolution. • Drive system decomposition, interface definition, integration planning, and release sequencing. • Balance technical, operational, lifecycle, and delivery tradeoffs across teams and releases. • Identify and manage architectural, integration, schedule, and operational risks across the product lifecycle. • Resolve cross-team technical conflicts and remove engineering friction. • Establish engineering practices that improve consistency, quality, and delivery across teams. • Mentor senior engineers and develop technical leadership throughout the organization. • Guide products from concept through integration, validation, operational readiness, and customer deployment. AI-Enabled Systems Engineering AI-assisted software development increases engineering velocity and raises the importance of strong systems engineering. In this role, you will help the organization: • Apply AI to accelerate architecture and systems analysis. • Identify integration and operational risks earlier. • Improve requirements validation and technical decision-making. • Scale systems engineering practices to support AI-enabled development. What We're Looking For Systems Thinking You understand complex software systems as interconnected products rather than isolated components. You reason across architecture, interfaces, dependencies, operational workflows, constraints, and emergent behavior. Software Architecture You have experience designing and evolving large software-intensive systems. You understand distributed systems, cloud platforms, APIs, data architecture, resiliency, observability, scalability, security, and operational readiness. Technical Leadership You influence through technical judgment rather than organizational authority. You build alignment across multiple teams, facilitate difficult engineering decisions, and guide organizations through ambiguity. Customer and Product Orientation You understand customer missions well enough to challenge assumptions, validate evolving requirements, and keep engineering effort aligned with customer outcomes. Learning Agility You repeatedly develop expertise in unfamiliar technical domains, synthesize input from specialists, and make sound engineering decisions across multiple disciplines. Required Qualifications • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience. • Significant experience designing and delivering complex software-intensive systems. • Experience serving as a technical lead across multiple engineering teams. • Strong understanding of modern software architecture and distributed systems. • Experience leading architecture reviews and technical trade studies. • Experience managing system integration and cross-team technical dependencies. • Demonstrated ability to resolve complex technical issues spanning multiple organizations. • Excellent communication skills with engineers, product managers, customers, and senior leadership. Preferred Experience • Cloud-native platforms and Kubernetes. • Event-driven and distributed architectures. • AI-assisted software development workflows. • Systems-of-systems engineering. • High-availability or mission-critical software. • Platform engineering. • Operational readiness and production deployment. • Model-based or digital systems engineering. What Success Looks Like • Deliver technically sound products across multiple releases. • Enable independent engineering teams to function as one cohesive product organization. • Resolve technical conflicts before they become delivery risks. • Improve engineering decision quality across multiple teams. • Develop other technical leaders. • Balance customer needs, architecture, schedule, cost, and operational risk. • Ensure delivered capabilities solve validated customer problems rather than simply implementing requested features. Pay Transparency: To support pay transparency, Vantor includes salary ranges in all U.S. job postings. Starting pay for this role will fall within the listed range and will be based on factors such as experience, qualifications, skills, location, and market conditions. Candidates who meet the minimum requirements for the role should not expect to receive compensation at the top of the range. The listed range reflects the expected pay for this position, and final offers will be determined based on each candidate’s experience, expertise, and alignment with the role. ● The base pay for this position within Colorado is: $128,000.00 - $170,000.00 - $187,000.00 annually. For all other states, we use geographic cost of labor as an input to develop market-driven ranges for our roles, and as such, each location where we hire may have a different range. Benefits: Vantor offers a competitive total rewards package that goes beyond the standard, including a robust 401(k) with company match, mental health resources, and unique perks like student loan repayment assistance, adoption reimbursement and pet insurance to support all aspects of your life. You can find more information on our benefits at: Additionally, this position is incentive eligible with a target based on contribution, company performance, and/or individual results achieved; the specific incentive plan and target amount will be determined based on the role and breadth of contributions. The application window is three days from the date the job is posted and will remain posted until a qualified candidate has been identified for hire. If the job is reposted regardless of reason, it will remain posted three days from the date the job is reposted and will remain reposted until a qualified candidate has been identified for hire. The date of posting can be found on Vantor's Career page at the top of each job posting. To apply, submit your application via Vantor's Career page. EEO Policy: Vantor is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace. We believe in fostering an environment where all team members feel respected, valued, and encouraged to share their ideas. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, protected veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.