Founding Software Engineer

Company Description

Mearas builds ATHENA, a software‑defined, drive‑by‑wire electric ground vehicle that a person can drive, an operator can run remotely, or a third‑party autonomy stack can host — one chassis for all three. We build the body; autonomy developers build the brain. ATHENA has been through a U.S. Army field assessment, we hold an executed CRADA with the Army's Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and USSOCOM has asked for an in‑person technical demonstration this fall.

Defense proves it; the civilian economy scales it. We're a small team in New York with a test site in the Hudson Valley.

You’ll be our first full‑time software engineer, working directly with the founder with the vehicle in front of you, and you’ll own the software layer. We are not looking for ten years of résumé. We’re looking for someone who has built real things, fits a small team, and can figure out what they don’t know yet.

The job, in priority order:

• Vehicle integration — the software that talks to propulsion, steering, and braking over CAN, plus telemetry and logging. Off‑the‑shelf components; your code is the glue that makes them one vehicle.
• Teleoperation — low‑latency control and video over satellite and cellular links, and the arbitration logic that decides who’s in charge at any moment: driver, remote operator, or autonomy.
• Safety — watchdogs, safe‑stop behavior, and the judgment to know when the vehicle should stop. This is the part we care about most.
• Operator tooling — the remote station, visualization, replay, and the data that proves what the vehicle did during a demonstration.

Not the job: electrical design, harnessing, VCU hardware, or autonomy research. Those have owners; you’ll work next to them.

How we work: we use AI coding tools every day, and so will you. The job isn’t typing every line; it’s knowing what the code is supposed to do, reading what the tools produce, testing it on a real vehicle, and taking responsibility for it running safely. If you already work this way and can show us something you shipped, you’re the profile.

This is an on‑site role in New York City with regular time at our Hudson Valley test site and at demonstrations with government and industry customers. Small team, real vehicle, real customers. We say what we mean, we own things, and we fix them when they break.

• Something real you’ve built and can show us — a robot, a vehicle, a drone, a race car’s data system, a working product. Student‑team and side‑project work counts.
• Python, some C++, and comfort on Linux. CAN bus experience is a plus; the willingness to learn it in a month is required.
• Enough networking to reason about a video stream over a bad link.
• A safety‑first instinct and the honesty to say “I don’t know” before the vehicle moves.
• Nice to have: ROS 2, motion control, GNSS/INS, autonomy‑stack integration, or time around defense and government test events.
• U.S. person eligibility: this role requires access to technology and data subject to U.S. export control laws. Candidates must be U.S. persons (U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, or protected individuals under 8 U.S.C. § 1324b) or otherwise eligible to obtain any required export authorization. [Wording to Jimmy before posting.]
• Veterans and student‑team engineers welcome. Mearas is an equal opportunity employer.

Compensation: $90,000–$140,000 base salary depending on experience, plus equity. [Benefits line — your decision.]