Backend Geospatial Software Engineer
Chesapeake Technology, Inc. | Remote — US
About Chesapeake Technology
Chesapeake Technology is a 25-year leader in marine survey software, developing SonarWiz — the industry-standard platform for processing sidescan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, bathymetry, and magnetometer data. We serve commercial survey companies, research institutions, government agencies, and defense customers worldwide. We are currently building a next-generation cloud-native platform that brings AI/ML-powered processing to the browser, along with edge computing capabilities for real-time AUV data analysis .
The Role
We're looking for a Backend Geospatial Software Engineer to architect and build the cloud processing engine powering our new platform. You'll work on large-scale geospatial data pipelines — ingesting, transforming, and serving sonar and bathymetric datasets — using modern Python-based scientific computing tools on AWS. You'll also help design lightweight edge processing solutions that run onboard autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for real-time sensor analysis and decision-making. High-impact role on a small, focused team where your work ships directly to production.
What You'll Do
• Design and implement scalable backend services for cloud-based geospatial data processing
• Build distributed data pipelines using Dask and Xarray to process large multi-dimensional sonar datasets
• Architect and optimize AWS infrastructure (S3, Lambda, ECS/EKS, Step Functions, SQS) for compute-intensive workloads
• Develop edge computing pipelines for onboard AUV data analysis, enabling real-time target detection and adaptive survey planning
• Design systems that bridge edge and cloud — syncing, validating, and enriching AUV-collected data post-mission
• Develop APIs that serve processed geospatial data to the web-based frontend
• Integrate ML/AI models for automated bottom tracking, target recognition, and data classification
• Optimize data storage, compression, and retrieval for large raster and point-cloud datasets
• Contribute to infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD pipelines
What We're Looking For
Required
• 3+ years of backend software engineering experience with Python
• Strong hands-on experience with AWS (S3, EC2/ECS, Lambda, Step Functions, or equivalent orchestration)
• Production experience with Dask for distributed/parallel computing
• Production experience with Xarray for multi-dimensional array data
• Solid understanding of geospatial data formats and CRS (GeoTIFF, NetCDF, shapefiles, WGS84, UTM)
• Experience building RESTful or GraphQL APIs
• Comfort with containerized deployments (Docker, Kubernetes)
Preferred
• Experience with edge computing or embedded processing on resource-constrained platforms (ARM, NVIDIA Jetson, or similar)
• Familiarity with AUV/UUV systems , robotics middleware (ROS/ROS2), or real-time sensor data processing
• Experience with marine survey, hydrographic, or oceanographic data
• Familiarity with sonar data processing (sidescan, multibeam, sub-bottom profiler)
• Experience with GDAL/OGR, Rasterio, or similar geospatial libraries
• Background in scientific computing or numerical methods
• Experience with ML/AI pipelines (TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar), including model optimization for edge deployment
• Familiarity with Zarr, Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (COG), or other cloud-native data formats
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK)
• Active or ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance
Why Chesapeake
• High impact — your code processes real-world ocean data used by navies, researchers, and survey companies worldwide
• Cloud + edge — work across the full spectrum, from scalable cloud infrastructure to real-time processing onboard AUVs
• Greenfield platform — built from the ground up with modern tools, no legacy constraints
• Small team, big ownership — direct influence on architecture decisions and product direction
• Domain expertise — 25 years of sonar processing knowledge; you'll learn a fascinating domain
• Flexible work — fully remote within the US with a collaborative, low-bureaucracy culture
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive salary commensurate with experience. Benefits include health insurance, flexible PTO, and professional development opportunities.