Founding Engineer

Maestro

$150K — $200K *
Consumer Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Strong engineering background; CS, math, software engineering, physics preferred
  • Experience as a founding or early engineer with enterprise product deployment
  • Cross-functional operational experience in startups or driving product thinking in larger companies
  • Proven track record of owning and shipping important software
  • Ability to handle demanding customer interactions
  • Willingness to travel to customer sites 25-50% of the time

Responsibilities

  • Build specialized software for modern fleets and shared platform architecture
  • Interview employees to uncover key challenges faced by the company
  • Develop integration and agent tooling for critical customer data sources
  • Optimize harness capabilities using trace data
  • Refine specialized models for firmware error diagnosis
  • Generalize customer needs into shared services for the platform
  • Manage the dynamics of an early startup environment with accountability and speed

Benefits

  • Opportunity to shape the architecture and engineering culture from an early stage
  • Direct engagement with customers to drive the product's relevance and usability
  • Dynamic work environment requiring adaptability and problem-solving skills
  • Involvement in innovative software solutions interacting with complex real-world systems
  • Potential for significant equity participation in a growing startup
Full Job Description
The role and what we require

We're looking for a founding engineer who can work directly with modern fleets to build specialized software while also building the shared platform underneath each deployment. This is not a one-off implementation role. The challenge is to make each deployment reflect the reality of the customer's fleet without creating a bespoke build for every customer.

You will be employee 3 and responsible for helping to shape the architecture, product, engineering culture, and customer-deployment model. Day to day could involve 1) interviewing company employees to understand their biggest challenges, 2) building integration and agent tooling for a key customer data source, 3) optimizing harness capabilities using trace data, 4) fine-tuning specialized models for firmware error diagnosis, 5) generalizing repeated customer needs into shared services for the platform, and much more.

You will be handling the chaos of an early startup and have to navigate difficult situations with customers, product decisions, time constraints. We will all be working closely but you need agency to run your own ship when everyone is spread thin, which is often the case! We value execution, speed, and accountability.

Who we're looking for

The exact titles you've held matter less than the systems you've owned.
You may be a strong fit if you've been:
  • A founding or early engineer who helped deploy a product with its first enterprise customers.
  • A forward deployed engineer who kept improving the platform underneath customer implementations.
  • A platform or infrastructure engineer who wants to work closer to customers and end users.
  • An engineer in a field where software interacts with complex real-world systems.

We are looking for candidates who:
  • Strong engineering background; CS, math, software engineering, physics preferred
  • Have operated cross-functionally, whether at a startup wearing multiple hats or by driving product/commercial thinking at a larger company
  • Has owned and shipped meaningful software
  • Can work directly with demanding customers
  • Can move between deployment work and platform architecture
  • Will work in person and travel to customer sites 25-50% of the time

Nice to have:
  • experience in robotics, autonomy, physical AI, fleet management, industrial or warehouse automation, IoT, or telemetry and observability.
  • experience building systems with strong security practices around customer data, permissions, access controls, and data isolation.
Compensation

$150-200K base + 0.5-1% equity + benefits

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