Head of Platform

Department: Engineering

Location: Rosslyn, VA

Employment Type: FullTime

About Rune

Rune Technologies builds mission-critical software for military logistics and sustainment. Our flagship product is TyrOS, an AI-enabled logistics command and control platform that gives commanders a single, real-time operating picture of their sustainment fight, from inventory and distribution to medical and operational planning, even in degraded and contested environments.

We're not a traditional defense contractor. We're a small, fast-moving team that combines deep operational experience in and with the DoD with the software discipline of the best product companies, and we apply that combination to a customer set that desperately needs it. We stay close to our users by embedding directly with military units during exercises and rotations, and we ship constantly based on what we learn.

The U.S. military and its allies face a real logistics modernization problem. We're building the software to solve it.

About the Role

At Rune, we are building the software infrastructure that enables joint military logistics operations to function across thousands of nodes — from cloud environments to edge systems onboard vehicles to disconnected users in the field. This is not traditional infrastructure. Our systems must operate in low-bandwidth, intermittently connected, and adversarial environments, while remaining fast, consistent, and developer-friendly.

As Head of Platform, you will lead the design and evolution of the technical backbone of Rune’s platform. You will own everything below the application layer: distributed systems architecture, data models, synchronization, backend scalability, and deployment across cloud and edge environments.

You will take an early but functioning system and scale it into a globally distributed, multi-thousand node mesh network, capable of synchronizing state across disconnected environments while maintaining performance, correctness, and usability. This includes designing systems that reconcile eventual consistency, offline operation, and real-time decision-making — and exposing these capabilities through clean, reliable APIs that other engineers can build on.

You will lead and grow a team of engineers, while remaining deeply hands-on in architecture and implementation. You will define the technical direction, set standards for performance and reliability, and lead development of the systems that everything else depends on.

What You’ll Do

• Own the infrastructure and backend platform that powers Rune’s products across cloud and edge environments.

• Architect and implement distributed systems that operate across unreliable networks with strong guarantees around synchronization, performance, and fault tolerance.

• Design and scale distributed data models, including schema design, replication strategies, and consistency models (e.g., CRDTs, event sourcing, or similar paradigms).

• Build and evolve a multi-node mesh synchronization layer capable of operating across thousands of heterogeneous devices.

• Define and enforce backend architecture standards for scalability, performance, and maintainability.

• Lead database architecture and performance, including query optimization, indexing strategies, and scaling approaches for large, distributed datasets.

• Develop geospatial and routing infrastructure — foundational APIs and services that support mapping, movement, and spatial reasoning at scale.

• Own cloud and edge deployment architecture, ensuring systems can be reliably deployed and operated in both connected and disconnected environments.

• Establish performance SLAs, observability, and system reliability standards across the stack.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of high-performing engineers while remaining deeply involved in technical execution.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling distributed systems in production environments.

• Proven track record of leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on in architecture and implementation.

• Deep expertise in backend systems design, including APIs, service architecture, and system scalability.

• Strong experience with distributed data systems, including replication, consistency models, and large-scale data processing.

• Experience designing systems that operate under eventual consistency, partial connectivity, or edge constraints.

• Strong programming ability in a systems-oriented language (e.g., Go, C++, Java, Rust).

• Experience owning and evolving complex technical systems from early-stage architecture to scaled production systems.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience building multi-region or globally distributed systems at scale (e.g., Google, Stripe, Datadog, etc.).

• Familiarity with CRDTs, distributed databases, or custom synchronization systems.

• Experience with edge computing, offline-first systems, or mesh/networked device architectures.

• Background in geospatial systems, mapping, routing, or graph-based infrastructure.

• Experience designing developer-facing platforms or infrastructure APIs used by other engineering teams.

• Experience operating systems in resource-constrained or unreliable environments.

Why This Role

• You will define the technical spine of the company.

• You will build systems that operate where most software cannot.

• You will solve problems at the intersection of distributed systems, edge computing, and real-world operations.

• Your work will directly enable software that supports large-scale, mission-critical logistics operations.

Benefits

Rune offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees to include a full suite of insurance options at no cost for employees and low-cost to spouses and dependents. Highly competitive equity grants are also  included in the majority of full time offers and are considered part of Rune's total compensation package. Benefits include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans; premiums 100% covered by Rune for all employees; exceptionally low premiums for spouses and dependents

• Basic life insurance and disability 100% covered for all employees by Rune; option to purchase additional life insurance available

• ‘Take the time off that you need, when you need it’ paid time off, not accrual based

• Generous company holiday calendar including a holiday shutdown in December

• Supportive leave of absence program including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave

• Full 401(k) retirement plan for all full-time eligible employees

• Company-funded commuter benefits

• Free access to on-site gym at office