Founding Engineer

Overmatch; Washington (Washington County); On-site; USD 160,000 - 205,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Healthcare

401(k)

Job summary

Overmatch is building an American defense technology platform and seeks a founding engineer to take an early-traction system to production-grade reliability and security. You will own core infrastructure, ship features end-to-end, and help steer technical direction in a small, fast-moving team.

Working directly with the CTO, you’ll blend backend and frontend work across Python/Django, React/TypeScript, and Node.js, with opportunities to push AI integration and enterprise-grade security for

Qualifications

• Experience shipping production software used by real users.
• Ownership of systems, on-call readiness, and reliability responsibilities.
• Comfort working across backend, frontend, and deployment layers.

Responsibilities

• Take live v1 platform to production-grade, scale and harden it.
• Build the oversight platform used by Pentagon-level leaders.
• Integrate AI systems across pipelines and workflows.
• Secure the platform for IL-5+ environments and compliance.

Skills

Backend development

Frontend development

API design

CI/CD

Tools

Django

React

Node.js

Job description

Engineering Washington, DC Full-Time $160k – $205k

About Overmatch

At Overmatch, our mission is to get the best tech to American servicemen and women at 10x speed. Our platform uses AI to map the defense industrial base — connecting program managers with vendors, automating market research, and bringing modern tooling to a process that still runs on spreadsheets and PDFs.

We're a small team with a live platform and a growing pipeline of DoD customers. We're based in DC because proximity builds trust — with our customers and each other.

The Role

You'll be the founding engineer working directly with the CTO. Your job is to take an early-traction platform and make it production-grade — hardening infrastructure, shipping features end-to-end, and helping set the technical direction of the company.

This is a true founding engineer role. You'll have meaningful ownership in the business and outsized influence on what gets built and how.

What You’ll Work On

• Take our live v1 platform to production-grade — scale, harden, and ship with confidence
• Build the oversight platform that will be used by executive-level leaders in the Pentagon
• Integrate AI systems across the platform — agentic research pipelines, LLM-driven market intelligence, and orchestrated workflows. You'll get deep exposure to productionizing AI systems and can go as far in this direction as you want to go
• Secure the platform for deployment into IL-5+ environments, working alongside our security partners to meet compliance requirements

What Your Day Looks Like

Some days you'll be deep in the backend, optimizing a Django query or building out a new API. Other days you’ll be wiring up a React component, debugging a Node.js agent integration, or reviewing CI/CD pipeline configs. The stack is Python/Django, React/TypeScript, and Node.js — you don't need to be an expert in all of it, but you should be comfortable moving between layers and picking up what you need.

You’ll ship code most days. The team is small enough that you’ll work between systems and frameworks and go where the work is.

Who You Are

• You want to see the American warfighter get the best tech at 10x speed.
• You've built and shipped software that real users depend on. You know what breaks in production and why.
• You've been responsible for systems, not just features — you've been the person who gets paged, debugs blind, and fixes forward.
• You take ownership of your product. You’ll be empowered to make decisions and carry weight.
• You want to learn modern AI methods quickly and want to take a position of influence at a fast-growing company.

Nice to Have

• Experience deploying into government or regulated environments (FedRAMP, IL-5)
• An active security clearance
• Military background
• Familiarity with AI/ML systems, LLM integrations, or agentic architectures

What We Offer

• Comp: $160–205k + meaningful equity
• Benefits: Healthcare, 401(k), transportation, cell phone & boat rides on the Potomac
• Time off: Rest is an integral part of high performance. We give everything, and take what we need to do so.

This position will require access to information subject to control under U.S. export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations ("EAR") and International Traffic in Arms Regulations ("ITAR"). Please note that any offer for employment will be conditioned on authorization to receive controlled items without sponsorship for an export license.