Backend Geospatial Engineer

Backend Geospatial Software Engineer

Chesapeake Tech nology, Inc. | Remote — US

About Chesapeake Tech nology

Chesapeake Tech nology 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.

Originally posted on Himalayas