Founding Software Engineer

About the role

Navi captures everything a pilot sees and hears and turns it into automated debrief intelligence — sortie-level awareness that has never existed before. You're building the platform that makes that happen.

ABOUT THE ROLE

This is a founding engineering role. You'll own entire systems end to end — the backend and data pipelines that power Navi's AI, the interfaces instructors and squadron commanders depend on daily, the architecture decisions that take this company from startup to aviation standard. Your code ships to university flight schools and military squadrons. Nothing here is theoretical. Navi is live at Embry-Riddle, Purdue, UND, Sling Pilot Academy, and the United States Air Force.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Build and scale the backend and data infrastructure that powers Navi's AI platform

- Work directly with pilots, instructors, and military operators to build tools that work in the cockpit and the classroom

- Integrate flight dynamics, telemetry, and cockpit audio into intelligent debrief and training systems

- Make the architecture calls that define how Navi scales — the frameworks, the infrastructure, the technical bets

- Ship code that goes live in aircraft — then iterate on real operator feedback, not hypotheticals

- Interface with engineers across the entire stack from hardware integration to AI/ML to frontend.

ABOUT YOU

- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of designing, building, and operating complex systems in production

- Demonstrated ability to lead projects end to end — from scoping and technical design through implementation, launch, and iteration — with minimal direction

- Deep expertise in at least one core area (backend systems, distributed infrastructure, data engineering, or full-stack development) and working fluency across others

- Experience designing systems for scale, reliability, and performance — you've made meaningful architectural decisions and lived with the consequences

- Strong engineering judgment: you know when to build, when to buy, and when to cut scope. You make pragmatic tradeoffs under real constraints

- History of raising the bar for teams around you — through code reviews, technical mentorship, establishing best practices, or driving engineering culture

- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and moving fast without sacrificing quality. You've shipped in environments where the roadmap wasn't fully defined

- Experience with modern data pipelines, real-time systems, or AI/ML integration

- You've built something from zero — a product, a startup, a system that people actually used

- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS), CI/CD, containerization, and modern deployment tooling

- Comfortable working directly with non-technical users and translating operator needs into engineering decisions