Founding Engineer role, with focus on US DoD programs and resilient MilCom
Location: Brooklyn | San Francisco | Relocation Supported Type: Full-time | Competitive Pay + Equity Start Date: ASAP
🧠 What You’ll Do
- Design and build resilient, real-time systems that operate in degraded, jammed, and contested environments
- Engineer across OSI layers 2–4, tuning nodes for failover, fallback comms, and distributed synchronization
- Focus on ultra-low latency, compact models, and embedded systems for low-SWaP deployments
- Deliver infrastructure that meets performance, security, and compliance standards required for DoD, IC, and FedCiv missions
- Work directly with the founding team on zero-to-one product roadmap, U.S. government contracts, and operational deployments
⚙️ What You Bring
- Must be a U.S. Citizen
- Must have prior experience working with the DoD, Intelligence Community, or U.S. federal civilian agencies
- 4+ years of engineering experience in at least one of the following:
- Embedded Systems: C/C++, Rust, real-time OS (FreeRTOS, Zephyr), firmware, secure boot
- AI/ML: PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow; quantization, pruning, distillation, LoRA; ONNX, TensorRT, TVM
- Networking/Infra: packet-level tuning, fallback and redundancy, protocol-level programming
- Strong systems-level skills, comfortable working close to hardware.
- Experience in resource-constrained or mission-critical deployments
🧩 Bonus
- Active or prior security clearance (TS/SCI, Secret, etc.)
- Background in MILCOM, aerospace, or IC programs (NSA, DISA, Army/Navy, etc.)
- Experience with contested networking: jamming resilience, disconnected ops, or distributed fallback comms.
- Prior work with secure radios, SDR/DSP, FPGA/SmartNIC, or embedded systems engineering + software-hardware deployment
- Publications or open-source contributions in embedded AI, networking, or secure systems
- Advanced degree (PhD or Master’s) in CS, EE, or related.
🚀 Why Join
We’re a venture-backed pre-seed startup re-architecting how machines communicate across defense, finance, and AI infrastructure. Check us out here. If you want to operate at the intersection of embedded systems, AI/ML, and networking—while directly securing our country and shaping systems deployed by the U.S.—let’s talk.
📬 How to Apply
Email team@cosmiclabs.io with subject line: Founding Engineer – Defense Systems / [Your Name]
In the body:
- Your name
- Why this role and why Cosmic Labs
- What you bring technically
- Soonest available start date
- Education and years of experience
- Confirmation of U.S. citizenship and prior DoD/IC/FedCiv experience
Attachment: PDF resume