Twenty

national security

SeniorBackendEngineer

New York, New York, United States FULL TIME
Market Sentiment
HIGH DEMAND

Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Senior candidates.

The Brief

“Senior Backend Engineer at Twenty. Skills: Go, graph databases, event-driven architectures, AWS, microservices. Design and implement scalable backend services in Go that improve operator decision-making and response. Build high-performance APIs that power customer-facing workflows and internal platform capabilities”

What You'll Achieve.

defending democracies in the digital age; deliver game-changing outcomes that directly impact national security; improve operator decision-making and response; unlock better operational outcomes

Industry & Context.

national security
Problems you'll solve

hard backend problems: throughput, latency, correctness, and operability under pressure; think in systems: data models, services, and workflows that work together reliably

Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility to obtain and maintain a U. S. Government security clearance, Work in a controlled environment

What They're Looking For.

Must Have

5+ years of professional software development experience building backend (or full-stack) applications, Proficiency with Go (Golang) and have shipped production services with it, Experience working with graph databases (Neo4j, AWS Neptune, or similar), including schema design and query performance, Working knowledge of event-driven architectures and message queues/streaming systems, Experience building and maintaining APIs (REST and/or GraphQL), Experience with cloud infrastructure, ideally AWS, and understand cloud-native deployment patterns, Hands-on experience with containerization and microservices architectures, Foundation in secure coding practices and can reason about security tradeoffs, Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

Nice to Have

Delivered software in defense, security, or other mission-critical environments, Built systems for analysts, operators, or high-tempo users where speed and reliability matter, Integrated AI/ML capabilities into production systems (inference, pipelines, or tooling), Experience with large-scale data processing and analytics workloads, Contributed meaningfully to open-source projects, Used observability tooling (metrics, tracing, logging) to debug and improve production systems

What You'll Do.

Design and implement scalable backend services in Go that improve operator decision-making and response

Build high-performance APIs that power customer-facing workflows and internal platform capabilities

Model complex relationships in graph databases and optimize schemas and queries for speed and clarity

Implement event-driven systems (e.g.

with NATS) to process real-time operational data streams

Develop and maintain automated tests to protect correctness

and performance as the system evolves

Build and operate microservices deployed on AWS

with an eye toward resilience and cost-aware scaling

Create and improve CI/CD pipelines that enable fast

secure delivery of new capabilities

Partner with cyber operations experts to translate domain needs into robust product features

Collaborate with frontend engineers on API contracts and data structures that are efficient and usable

Evaluate new technologies and patterns that could unlock better operational outcomes

How You'll Work.

Team & Collaboration

Partner closely with product, frontend, and domain experts; Collaborate well across disciplines; Partner with cyber operations experts; Collaborate with frontend engineers

Communication Scope

communicate clearly

Full Job Description

ABOUT THE COMPANY At Twenty, we're taking on one of the most critical challenges of our time: defending democracies in the digital age. We develop revolutionary technologies that operate at the intersection of the cyber and electromagnetic domains, where the speed of operations exceeds human sensing and complexity transcends conventional boundaries. Our team doesn't just solve problems – we deliver game-changing outcomes that directly impact national security. We're pragmatic optimists who understand that while our mission of protecting America and its allies is challenging, success is possible. ROLE SUMMARY You’ll build the backend systems that power Twenty’s cyber and electromagnetic capabilities—software that ingests real-time operational signals, models complex relationships, and serves high-throughput APIs at machine speed. You’ll design and ship reliable services in Go, working with known-hard problems like graph data modeling, event-driven architectures, and performance at scale. You’ll partner closely with product, frontend, and domain experts to turn operator needs into durable platform capabilities. This role spans both cloud and on-premises environments supporting mission-critical U.S. national security outcomes. WHO YOU ARE - You care about building systems that have real-world impact, especially in national security and defense of democracies. - You’re excited by hard backend problems: throughput, latency, correctness, and operability under pressure. - You take pride in clean interfaces—APIs that are intuitive, consistent, and built to evolve. - You think in systems: data models, services, and workflows that work together reliably. - You’re pragmatic and iterative—ship value quickly, then harden, measure, and improve. - You collaborate well across disciplines, communicate clearly, and welcome direct feedback. - You default to ownership: you notice gaps, propose solutions, and drive them to completion. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Design and implement scalable backe

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