Founding Software Engineer

Leoforce; Long Beach (CA); Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Leoforce is seeking a Founding Software Engineer in the United States. You will build foundational backend systems with Python, apply AI-assisted tooling, and drive architectural decisions at a startup stage with direct access to the founder.

You’ll own critical components from data models to deployment, balancing reliability, performance, and product impact while communicating tradeoffs clearly and delivering working software frequently.

Qualifications

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals and production systems experience.
• Experience with AI-assisted/agentic development and LLM-powered tooling.
• Ability to make architectural tradeoffs with product impact in mind.

Skills

Backend fundamentals

Product mindset

Engineering judgment

AI-assisted development

LLM/agentic systems

Strong communication

Job description

Founding Software Engineer

Long Beach, CA, US

Job Description

Experience: Mid Level

Salary: $150,000 - $190,000 per year

What We’re Looking For

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals
  You’ve designed and shipped production systems and understand how the pieces fit together — from data models and APIs through runtime, deployment, monitoring, and the end-user experience. Python is the primary language today, but we care more about strong engineering judgment than loyalty to a particular language.
• A true product builder
  You’re comfortable figuring things out when there isn’t a roadmap or a detailed specification. You naturally step back to understand the larger problem, prioritize what matters, and keep moving toward the goal.
• Excellent technical and product judgment
  You think beyond implementation. Before optimizing how something gets built, you want to understand whether it’s the right thing to build in the first place.
• Advanced experience with AI-assisted and agentic development
  You’re actively using modern agentic coding tools to produce high-quality software — not simply experimenting with them. You understand where agents add leverage, where human judgment is essential, and how to effectively direct and evaluate AI-generated work.
• Hands-on LLM and agentic systems experience
  You have meaningful experience building, using, and deploying LLM-powered or agentic systems, ideally in environments where reliability and operational quality matter.
• High ownership and strong communication
  You’re comfortable working directly with a founder, taking an incomplete direction and turning it into a recommendation, explaining technical tradeoffs clearly, and demonstrating progress through working software rather than activity reports.

Nice to Have

• Experience working in a regulated or highly technical industry such as aerospace, defense, medical technology, or fintech.
• Previous experience at an early-stage startup.
• Experience building products where reliability, security, or operational performance are critical.

What the Working Environment Looks Like

• Fully remote within the United States.
• U.S. citizenship required.
• Occasional Los Angeles-area meetings are encouraged but not required.
• Full-time role with flexibility around customer and SBIR milestones.
• Primarily asynchronous communication through Slack or a similar platform.
• Approximately 3–5 short meetings per week.
• One concise written weekly update.
• High autonomy, direct access to the founder, and significant influence over the technical direction.

Why This Role Is Different

This is an opportunity to join at the earliest technical stage and have an outsized impact on both the product and the company.

You’ll have the autonomy to make meaningful technical decisions, work directly with a founder who understands the engineering problems firsthand, build with cutting-edge AI tools, and help establish the technical foundation for a product being developed for real aerospace and defense applications.

A bit about us:

We’re an early-stage software company building a platform designed to dramatically reduce the time it takes to move from engineering concept to manufacturable design.

We’re working directly with aerospace and defense companies on complex, real-world engineering problems.

The founder brings 10+ years of hardware and software development experience from world-renowned aerospace and defense powerhouses. We’re combining that deep hardware expertise with software and AI to rethink how complex products are designed and developed.

Why join us?

• Be the first technical hire and work directly with the founder.
• Build from 0→1 and have a major voice in the product and technical direction.
• Work on real aerospace and defense problems with direct customer feedback.
• Build with AI and agentic development tools at the forefront of modern software engineering.
• Have significant ownership and autonomy rather than working from a long list of tickets.
• Earn meaningful equity as an early member of the company.
• Work fully remote with a lean, asynchronous team.