Senior Software Engineer (Core Services) - Costa Rica

SimSpace serves as an AI Proving Ground where organizations can confidently train, test, and outmaneuver adversaries in any environment. Trusted by allied governments, militaries, enterprises, and research institutions worldwide, SimSpace enables adaptive, AI-ready defenses that stay ahead of evolving threats. Founded in 2015 by experts from U.S. Cyber Command and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the platform unifies training, testing, and validation in a realistic, live-fire simulation—helping teams evaluate security investments, optimize performance, and compress cyber readiness cycles from months to days.

Why join SimSpace? We are an organization that is focused on building our culture and mindfully enhancing our atmosphere every day which is why we have collaborated on an integral value system. Our governing philosophy of being Human Centered is deeply embedded within our value system. We apply this philosophy to every one of our internal team members, external clients, and their customers.

How Do We Work? We believe that people are at the center of everything we do. SimSpace fosters a culture of continuous learning, curiosity, and professional growth. That belief shows up in action: in-house training, internal and external learning platforms, cyber conferences, industry events, and dedicated time for skill development. Our people are empowered to shape their careers - and it shows. Year over year, SimSpace consistently outperforms industry benchmarks in internal mobility, promotions, and total rewards growth.

Who Thrives Here? We are a team of innovators, protectors, and problem-solvers. We believe diversity of thought and experience fuels better solutions, and we’re committed to building teams that reflect the communities we serve. Whether you’re remote or office-based, you’ll collaborate with talented colleagues across departments and time zones, united by the mission to create a safer digital world.

We invite you to apply today!

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, CORE SERVICES, COSTA RICA

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Core Services team building the foundational platform abstractions that power the SimSpace cyber range. The ideal candidate is a strong backend engineer who thrives on complex systems problems — someone who can reason about infrastructure integration challenges, build software that other teams depend on, and hold a high bar for reliability and API design while still delivering pragmatically. This is not a web application role; the work lives at the intersection of distributed systems, virtualization, and platform engineering.

In this position, you'll design and build the core services that enable cyber range creation, orchestration, and management in a multi-tenant environment. The team operates as both a delivery team and a platform team — you'll be building new capabilities while also supporting the engineering teams that consume your APIs and abstractions. The software you write must work reliably against external infrastructure with varying capabilities and constraints, and you'll need to be comfortable navigating that complexity. Specifically, this team builds the services and APIs responsible for:

• Cyber range lifecycle management — provisioning, configuration, teardown, and everything in between

• Virtualization and infrastructure integration layers that bridge the platform to underlying compute environments

• In-range asset management — versioning, templates, and configuration of the virtual machines that make up a range

• Control plane coordination between the platform and the range environment at runtime

WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING AS A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, CORE SERVICES AT SIMSPACE?

• Design and implement core platform services in Kotlin, building the abstractions described above across diverse infrastructure targets. API design quality, documentation, and stability are first-order concerns — not afterthoughts.

• Solve difficult integration challenges at the boundary between platform software and virtualization infrastructure. The systems you integrate with have their own constraints, failure modes, and behavioral quirks — you'll need to build software that handles this gracefully rather than assuming a clean interface.

• Collaborate with Staff and Principal Engineers on architectural decisions, bringing hands-on implementation experience and practical tradeoff analysis to design discussions. You won't own the architecture, but your input on what's buildable and maintainable is critical.

• Own features and components end-to-end — from design through implementation, testing, and production operation. Write well-tested, production-quality code with meaningful instrumentation — structured logging, metrics, and alerting that enable you to understand service health, measure reliability, and react to failures in production.

• Support other engineering teams that depend on Core Services APIs and abstractions. This means being responsive to integration questions, helping debug issues at service boundaries, and thinking about the developer experience of your consumers — not just the implementation behind the interface.

• Identify and drive resolution of performance bottlenecks, reliability issues, and technical debt within the Core Services stack, taking ownership of problems through to resolution rather than handing them off.

WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATIONS TO APPLY? TO BE SUCCESSFUL AS A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, CORE SERVICES YOU NEED TO HAVE:

• Strong bilingual proficiency in English and Spanish skills required across written, virtual, and in-person interactions

• Experienced software engineer with 5+ years of experience and a track record of building backend services and platform-level software — not application-layer or frontend work.

• Proficient in Kotlin or a closely related JVM language (Java, Scala), with a strong understanding of JVM fundamentals, concurrency patterns, and modern language features. Kotlin is the team's primary language and you should be productive in it quickly.

• Comfortable working at the systems level — you understand how software interacts with infrastructure, networking, and virtualization layers, and you can reason about problems that span those boundaries.

• Experience with VMware or hypervisor technologies is a strong plus. Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) or private cloud platforms (OpenStack, Proxmox) is also valuable — the important thing is that you've built software that integrates with infrastructure APIs and understand the challenges that come with it.

• Solid understanding of distributed systems fundamentals — service communication patterns, consistency tradeoffs, and failure handling in environments where external dependencies don't always behave predictably.

• Strong API design sensibility — you think about contracts, versioning, backwards compatibility, and the developer experience of the teams consuming your services. You treat your API as a product. Experience with both synchronous (REST) and asynchronous (message bus) communication patterns is valuable.

• Demonstrated ability to work autonomously on complex problems, breaking ambiguous requirements into clear implementation plans without needing every detail specified upfront.

• Effective communicator who can articulate technical tradeoffs clearly, participate constructively in design reviews, and build trust across teams through reliability and follow-through.

We’re proud to offer a competitive and comprehensive package designed to support your well-being, growth, and success:

• Compensation. Base monthly pay range: 1,500,000 CRC - 2,500,000 CRC reflecting our confidence in your expertise and impact, with the opportunity for annual bonuses tied to company performance and individual contributions.

• Health & Wellness. Private medical, dental, vision, and life benefits.

• Mental Health Support. Access to company-paid counseling, coaching, and resources for you and your family through Spring Health.

• Parental Leave. Paid leave plans to support you and your loved ones during life’s most important moments.

• Ownership Opportunities. Equity stock options at hire, with annual performance-based grants—become an invested stakeholder in our shared success.

• Continuous Learning. Access a LinkedIn Learning membership to prioritize your personal and professional development.

• Social Connections: Monthly reimbursements for meaningful connections with teammates through our SocialSpace Community.

SimSpace is an Equal Opportunity Employer:

In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.

SimSpace is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, genetic information, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients.

Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups only apply to jobs if they meet all of the qualifications. However, no one ever meets 100% of the qualifications. SimSpace encourages you to break that statistic and to apply. We look forward to your application!

We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, in accordance with applicable law. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, please contact careers@simspace.com.

SimSpace does not accept unsolicited resumes from employment agencies.

Actual compensation for the position is based on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to affordability, skills, qualifications and experience, and may vary from the range.