Software Engineer

About the role

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Foundational Industries · SF Bay Area · Full-Time

About Foundational

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing, reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable, and we’re focused on operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership.

WHO — Who Thrives Here

This role is for a software engineer who wants both: to build systems from scratch and to see them run in production, under real operational pressure, in a real factory. The greenfield work here is meaningful. So is the production bar. The right person finds both equally compelling.

A note on pace: this is a startup building something genuinely hard. The people who do best here bring a sense of urgency that’s internal, not installed. If you need the environment to create pressure for you, this probably isn’t the right fit. If you’re the one creating pressure for the environment, keep reading.

The person who thrives here:

- Builds with the end environment in mind — clean architecture and operational reliability are the same goal.

- Moves with urgency. Bias toward action, not toward getting comfortable.

- Takes ownership of outcomes, end to end. Designs it, ships it, stands behind it.

- Communicates with precision — translates technical decisions clearly across engineering, operations, and product.

- Iterates fast and holds a high bar for what “done” actually means.

- Is genuinely drawn to physical systems and curious about how factories operate. The constraints are part of the appeal.

MISSION

Build the software systems that power Foundational’s AI-native manufacturing platform, from first principles to production.

OUTCOMES — WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN 6–12 MONTHS

- Design and ship core backend services and APIs that connect factory equipment, robotics, and operational systems into Foundational’s unified platform, live in production within six months.

- Own at least one greenfield system end to end: from architecture decision through deployment, with measurable operational impact.

- Build data pipelines that give the operations team real-time visibility into factory performance — turning raw machine data into actionable signal.

- Develop a working fluency in the factory environment — understand the physical constraints and design software that holds up in them.

SKILLS

- 3–7+ years of professional software development, with production systems as the primary proving ground. We care more about what you’ve shipped than how long you’ve been at it.

- Strong command of at least one modern language (Python, Go, C++, Java) and comfort across a polyglot stack