{"id":449199,"url":"https://alion.io/job/metalware-founding-engineer","title":"Founding Engineer","company":{"id":173548,"name":"Metalware","domain":"metalware.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/metalware","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":120000,"max":180000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":180000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":3,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Binary Ninja","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"Ghidra","optional":false},{"name":"IDA Pro","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"QEMU","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Assembly","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-06T08:13:48Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-22","last_verified_at":"2026-11-03T01:30:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":57,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":57},"description":"Metalware helps protect cyber-physical systems in critical industries. We develop advanced firmware analysis and security solutions for industries where failure isn’t an option.\nWe are privileged to work on the most cutting-edge (and sometimes secretive) projects across aerospace, defense, automotive, industrials, energy, telecom, healthcare, and more.\nAI is making it easier to ship code; Metalware is making it easier to ship secure code.\nFounding Engineer\nWe’re looking for founding engineers to drive our product development from the ground floor. You won’t just optimize existing software, you’ll own new features/products to improve and expand our firmware analysis platform.\nAs a Founding Engineer, you are self-driven, curious, and a quick learner. You have strong problem-solving skills, a positive attitude, and an ownership mentality. You can also wear multiple hats-software, security, DevOps, AI, UI/UX, etc. You may naturally align with one or two of these most of the time, but you can roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty to deliver whatever is necessary to help our customers.\nWhy you should join Metalware\nYou want to work side-by-side with the founders and early team to shape product direction and technical roadmap.\nYou prefer the dopamine of working on software that impacts critical systems society relies on, rather than optimizing social media clicks.\nYou like to work directly with users/customers to gather user feedback, understand requirements, and ship code quickly.\nYou’re passionate about developing high-quality software and own every aspect of the development lifecycle: ideation, design, coding, testing, and ongoing support.\nYou want to do the best work of your life with people who push you to be better, and you want to help build that team too.\nWhat you’ll do\nEngage in the entire product lifecycle from identifying relevant latest research to developing prototypes and building robust and scalable solutions.\nAdd support for a variety of CPU architectures, real-time operating systems, and custom hardware interfaces.\nAnalyze and reverse-engineer firmware binaries to uncover vulnerabilities and improve detection accuracy.\nResearch cutting-edge techniques in binary analysis, symbolic execution, and adversarial testing, contributing to both internal R&D and external security communities.\nDesign and implement ML/AI architectures that can interpret binary data, facilitating automated symbolic recovery and analysis of stripped firmware images.\nGather and incorporate user feedback to continuously improve product features and performance.\nEngage in architecture, design, and code reviews to build robust, scalable solutions.\nPublish and present white papers, conference talks, and technical reports to industry and government communities.\nFurther our mission to make it easier to ship safe software.\nMinimum qualifications\nYou are proficient in Rust, C, or C++, and have meaningful experience (personal or professional) in embedded or systems software development.\nYou are skilled in one or more of the following: Software Engineering, Security Engineering, Vulnerability Research, Machine Learning, LLMs, and Computer Architecture.\nBachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related discipline OR 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.\nIdeal qualifications\nSolid understanding of computer architecture, operating systems, kernels, drivers, networking protocols, and mathematics.\nExperience embedded security, reverse engineering, and tools such as Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or IDA Pro.\nKnowledge of emulator frameworks like QEMU, including Tiny Code Generator (TCG).\nFamiliarity with instruction set architectures (ISA) such as ARM, MIPS, and RISC-V.\nExperience with LLMs or traditional AI/ML for pattern recognition and automated reasoning tasks.\nFamiliarity with cybersecurity best practices and standards.\nStrong skills in debugging, performance optimization, and testing methodologies.\nPast participation in Capture the Flag competitions (CTFs).\nAdditional requirements\nMust be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed to meet project deadlines and deliverables.\nBenefits\nCompetitive salary and equity package.\nFull health, vision, and dental benefits.\nOptional 401(k) program.\nOpportunities for continuous professional development: trainings, conferences, and access to the world’s leading researchers and engineers with whom we collaborate.\n30-min intro call with Ryan (CEO)\n1-hour technical interview with Andrew (CTO) and engineering team\n1-day onsite interview + work trial at our office in San Francisco","description_format":"text","description_chars":4623,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":3,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Information Security"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-06T08:13:48Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":21,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.464,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":56,"expected_fill_days":29,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":180000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/metalware-founding-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/metalware-founding-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-03T04:33:57Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":6155,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-04T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":173548},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=173548"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmetalware-founding-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmetalware-founding-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmetalware-founding-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/metalware-founding-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmetalware-founding-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":449199}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"metalware.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":449199},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}