Systems Software Engineer

This isn't a job. It's a career built around a real target: out-build the entire self-storage industry in technology and become the most efficient operator in it while delivering the best customer experience in the space.

You'll work next to people who don't tolerate mediocre work, on problems most engineers never get their hands on this early in a company's life. You'll learn things you can't learn anywhere else, because you'll be the one building them for the first time.

If you want a real career instead of a paycheck, this is where you build it.

The Problem With This Industry

Self-storage right now is fractured. Every operator bolts together a stack of third-party point solutions:

• One vendor for the phone system.
• Another for the chatbot.
• Another for reporting.
• None of it talking to the others.

That's not what we're building. 10 Federal is building one cohesive, well-oiled, modular machine. Systems that share data, share decisions, and get better because they're connected, not because someone glued another tool on top of the last one.

You'd be one of the first people building that machine.

This is not a clock-watching job. If that's what you're looking for, this isn't the role.

Ownership matters here. That does not mean unpaid infinity hours. It means you take the work seriously and see it through.

What We Want

• Obsessed with architecture. How it's built, why it's built that way, and what breaks when it isn't.
• Modular by default. If you don't know what modular means, can't explain why it matters, or don't want to build that way, this isn't the job for you.
• Willing to tear up your own work. Expect to rip apart what you build, more than once, until it's modular enough to be reused across multiple codebases. That's not a failure state. That's the job.

Before You Apply, Know This

• In office, five days a week. At Raleigh HQ. Not optional, not negotiable, not a "we'll see how it goes."
• Relocation. Can be negotiated if needed.
• Microsoft. 10 Federal runs on Microsoft. Knowledge of Microsoft tools and Azure is a plus, not a requirement.

If "good enough" is good enough for you, this isn't the role. If you want to mail it in and collect a paycheck, we're not the right fit for you, and that's fine. Just not here.

Every operator in this industry defaults to buying instead of building. That's not a technology strategy. That's a stack of invoices that don't talk to each other.

Build, Don't Buy

We'd rather build it ourselves. Not because buying is always wrong, but because a system built in-house, by someone who actually understands the business, integrates in ways a third-party product never will.

We optimize for one company: this one.

That is one of our biggest advantages. A vendor has to satisfy a thousand companies that all operate differently. We can learn this business deeply, build for exactly how 10 Federal works, and make every new system fit the systems around it.

• When we build it ourselves, it plugs directly into everything else we've already built.
• When we buy it, we're stuck translating, patching, and hoping the vendor's roadmap lines up with ours.
• The tighter the fit, the faster the company can move and the harder our operating model is to copy.

We will pay to build something great before we pay a vendor for something that barely works and talks to nothing.

What Modular Actually Means

Every system is a self-contained piece with a clean interface. Swap it out, extend it, or reuse it somewhere else without tearing apart everything connected to it.

It's the difference between a machine where you can pull one part and replace it, and a machine where pulling one part breaks four others.

If what you build can't be replaced or reused without a rewrite, it isn't modular enough yet. You'll be asked to go back and fix that before it ships. This is the single word you'll hear from me the most: Modular.

The Unified Data Platform

The UDP is where this philosophy actually lives. It's the single source of truth for the company.

• Every system feeds into it: the FMS (Facility Management System), the camera network, BI and reporting, marketing, and accounting.
• All of it can be queried from it.
• It's the foundation everything else gets built on top of.

The voice agent, the chatbot, the reporting layer. None of it works without a real data layer underneath it that actually understands the business.

You won't just be shipping features. You'll be building and extending the platform those features have to stand on.

This role touches the whole company:

• Technology
• Construction
• Marketing
• Operations
• Accounting
• Any other department with a process worth automating or a system worth connecting

There's no department this role is fenced out of. If a team has a problem that costs time, costs money, or blocks scale, and AI or automation can fix it, this role is in that conversation.

It's not only internal tools. You'll build outward-facing systems too: the website, the web app, APIs, documentation, whatever the business needs. If it's software, it's fair game.

This is the kind of experience that builds a resume you're actually proud of. Real systems, real scale, real ownership. Not busywork.

DaVinci Solutions

10 Federal has a sister company, DaVinci Solutions. It's a proprietary lock and access-control system used across the self-storage industry, not just in 10 Federal's own facilities.

DaVinci is not a maybe. It is part of this job. You will optimize, re-implement, integrate, and extend the platform as the business needs it.

That means building for both sides of the company: 10 Federal as the self-storage operator, and DaVinci Solutions as the software and SaaS company serving the wider industry.

DaVinci currently runs on C# and .NET. That stack is open to change when a better language, architecture, or framework can be proven.

This isn't theoretical. Here's what's already on the table:

• The Unified Data Platform. Build and extend the pipelines, connections, and architecture that keep it the one place where everything in the company connects, instead of letting it become another silo.
• Real-time voice AI. Build and extend our own voice AI, running on live speech-to-speech models and trained on 10 Federal's own data, instead of leaning on an expensive, generic voice vendor.
• Chat and SMS. Fix or fully replace the customer-facing experience running across 135+ facilities. Right now it's a generic tool with none of our actual business logic in it.
• System connections. Keep connecting the systems that run this company (the FMS, the camera network, BI and reporting, and marketing) into the UDP instead of leaving them as disconnected logins.
• Platforms for every part of the company. Build systems for Operations, Accounting, Marketing, Investing, Construction, and any other part of the business that can be made faster or smarter. Each platform should own its domain, fit into one cohesive orchestration, and feed the UDP.
• DaVinci Solutions. Optimize, re-implement, integrate, and extend the lock and access-control platform for a software and SaaS business serving the broader self-storage industry.

The UDP is the operating system of this company. The platforms around it are modular parts of one coordinated machine.

The Stack

This is the stack today, not a permanent decree. We will change a language, framework, architecture, or tool when something better can be proven. Nothing is static just because it is already in production.

• Backend. Python and Go
• Front end. TypeScript and React
• Real-time voice AI. LiveKit with xAI Grok
• SMS. Twilio
• Data. Postgres and Redis
• Hosting and identity. Microsoft and Azure
• Reporting. Power BI, Fabric, and dashboards we build internally
• AI integration. MCP servers connecting AI to real business systems
• DaVinci Solutions. C# and .NET today, with the architecture open to change

You won't be boxed into one layer. You'll touch all of it.

No degree required. What's required is a real technical background and proof you can operate at the level this role demands. Proven chops, not years served.

Required

• A solid technical foundation. Software, hardware, computer science, computer engineering, or something adjacent. The specific path doesn't matter. The depth does.
• Full-stack range. Comfortable owning a service end to end. A real backend, a real data layer, a real interface on top. Not boxed into one layer.
• Architecture thinking. You can draw a clean boundary around what a system owns, and defend that boundary when someone wants to bolt one more thing onto it instead of building it right. Not just recite syntax.
• Modular design as default practice. Services that own one thing, talk to each other through clear contracts, and can be rebuilt or replaced in isolation without taking the rest of the system down. You can point to real work built that way, not rebuilt that way after the fact.
• Debugging and observability instincts. You instrument what you build so it tells you why it broke. You'd rather a system fail loudly than fail silently.
• Self-directed execution. You can take an ambiguous business problem, write the spec, and turn it into a working system without every step being handed to you.

Proof over credentials. A portfolio, GitHub history, or specific systems you can talk through in depth carry more weight here than a list of tools on a resume. Be ready to go deep on something you built.

Helpful, Not Required

• Microsoft ecosystem and Azure experience.
• C# and .NET experience, relevant if this role extends into DaVinci Solutions.
• Experience building AI-powered systems: agentic workflows, RAG, MCP integrations. This is about having built with them, not just used them.
• Experience shipping public-facing products, not just internal tools.

I'm the first Chief AI Officer in the self-storage industry. I lead AI strategy, architecture, and development across 10 Federal's automated management platform, supporting 135+ fully automated facilities in 17+ states.

Before This

• NVIDIA, 4+ years. Senior Software Engineer.
  • Board Support Package. Autonomous vehicles. Safety-critical automotive ECUs, Linux and RTOS bring-up, low-level driver development, hardened IPC frameworks, and porting drivers to an ASIL-D, ISO 26262 functional safety island for production automotive hardware.
  • BMC Firmware. Part of the BMC firmware team for Grace Blackwell, and part of the Vera Rubin bring-up team for major cloud service providers. Those platforms represented roughly one trillion dollars in NVIDIA orders.
• Fishbowl Digital. Led and contributed to embedded hardware, firmware, and real-time systems across medical, defense, energy, and thermal imaging products.
  • Capstone Turbine. A full hardware and software rewrite for a turbine generator in Southern California.
  • SIG SAUER. The ECHO3 thermal sniper scope.
  • Cancer screening. Thyroid and parathyroid cancer-screening technology that passed through the FDA and was later acquired by Medtronic.
  • Seek Thermal. COVID-era thermal cameras used across the country to measure the temperatures of people entering buildings.
  • Ophthalmology machines. Measured the seven layers of the eye and the potential for problems that develop as you get older.
  • Embedded systems. Other embedded firmware and real-time systems across the same range of products.
• Northrop Grumman. Missile-defense technology for the Huey and Black Hawk helicopter platforms, while holding a Secret clearance.
• Georgia Tech, 7+ years. Head Instructional Associate for the graduate information security program, training and managing 25+ instructors who deliver coursework to 1,200+ students a year.

That background is why the standards here are what they are: safety-critical rigor, modular architecture, and things that actually run in production, not demos.

You report directly to me. Not to a layer of management between us. To me.

I'm not handing you a list and walking away. I'll be in the trenches with you, day in and day out, building rapidly and iterating as business needs change. This isn't a role where someone tells you what to do and checks in once a quarter.

Honestly, I'm hoping you teach me something too. This works best as a two-way exchange. You teach me, I teach you, and we move faster together than either of us would alone. That kind of tandem work is what real rapid iteration looks like on the technology side of this company, not one person directing and the other executing.

Your Time Is Protected

You won't be buried in status meetings, recurring syncs that exist so someone feels informed, or calendar noise that adds nothing. If a meeting doesn't need to happen, it doesn't happen.

What I expect in return is real performance. Things that ship, that work, that are actually done.

How Work Gets Picked

Problems come from the business, not from a backlog someone invented in a vacuum. Leaders across departments surface what's actually costing them time or money. We evaluate every one of those by:

• Time cost
• Dollar cost
• Scaling impact
• How hard it actually is to build

How Work Gets Built

• Spec first. Nothing gets built before it's specced. We write out the architecture and the reasoning before a single line of code, so the decisions are documented and anyone could pick up the thread and understand why it's built the way it is.
• Proof of concept. We build one to prove the direction is right.
• Full breakdown to leadership. The steps, the timeline, the cost, who owns what.
• Production means done. Fully deployed, documented, tested. No TODOs left behind as someone else's problem.

We're building toward two things together: real operational efficiency, and an engineering function that lives in-house instead of scattered across third-party vendors. That's the work. You're not doing it alone, and you're not doing it for someone who's hands-off.

10 Federal has one North Star, plotted on two axes. Operational Efficiency on the X-axis, Customer Experience on the Y-axis.

The target is the box where both are high. Not efficient at the cost of experience. Not a great experience propped up by inefficient operations. Both, at the same time, better than anyone else in self-storage.

Every system this role touches should move 10 Federal toward that target. If it doesn't move us up, right, or both, it's not worth building.

Base salary and title are set to the person, not a posted ladder that companies invent online.

There's no dollar range on this posting, because the band isn't fixed until we see the proof. If you're in the conversation, we'll talk numbers directly.

How Pay Moves Here

• First 90 days. A mutual evaluation period. We're both deciding if this is the right fit. Working means you're in the office, you're shipping, and what you ship is modular enough to reuse. If it's not working on either side, we will move on quickly rather than dragging it out.
• Merit, not tenure. Increases are earned through demonstrated impact, not years served and not politics.
• Quarterly, not annual. We review compensation quarterly. If you deliver a win big enough to matter before the next review, it doesn't wait.
• Vendor replacement share. If you fully replace or substantially cut the cost of a third-party vendor, you get a real share of what you saved the company. The split is written down when a replacement ships, not invented after. Whether it lands as a raise or a bonus depends on the situation, and leadership decides case by case.
• Equity. 10 Federal has an active equity incentive plan, and grants come out of it once you've proven what you can do here. There's no equity in your starting offer. Leadership reviews equity awards annually and grants them at its discretion based on demonstrated performance. Not guaranteed, not automatic, but real ownership for the people who earn it.

Growth here tracks impact, not years served. The more you build and save, the more it shows up in your pay.

10 Federal's co-founders and co-CEOs believe in these values deeply. We live and die by them.

Anyone in this role is expected to live by all five, not just the ones that are convenient. If you work here, these values become your internal North Star, alongside the company North Star above.

This is not an IT role. It's architecture, engineering, and full-stack ownership.

• Define the architecture. Every system starts with a real design, not code first.
• Work across departments. Gather requirements and make sure what gets built actually solves the problem, not just the version of the problem that made it into the first conversation.
• Build for ease of use. If the people using it can't operate it without you standing next to them, it's not done.
• Instrument everything. Build in full logging and debugging from the start. When something breaks, you need to find out why fast, not guess.
• Wire systems into MCP. So they can be queried through an AI front-end, not just accessed through a dashboard someone has to log into.
• Own it full stack. Top to bottom. You're expected to learn and understand every layer of what you build, not hand pieces off to someone else who understands it for you.

AI is expected in every part of this job. Code, documentation, research, communication. That's not optional.

What We Won't Tolerate

AI slop. Sloppy, unreviewed, unverified output passed off as finished work, whether it's in emails, code, or documentation.

If you generate it, you own it. You test it, you review it, you understand it before it goes anywhere.

We don't vibe code here. AI is a tool to help us enforce architecture and coding standards, not a replacement for having them. You don't let it run and hope. You direct it, check its work, and take responsibility for the result.

Tell Us What's in Your Toolkit

• Grok, Grok Bot, and Cursor. We especially want to hear about hands-on experience here, since those are likely to be central to how you work.
• Claude. We run it in-house.
• Everything else. Codex, Windsurf, ChatGPT, whatever else is in your stack. We want to hear about all of it.

The tool matters less than how well you use it, and how honest you are about what it did versus what you did.