OPPORTUNITIES AT TOMORROW'S GREATEST COMPANIES

Founding Engineer

Obviant

Obviant

Other Engineering
Washington, DC, USA · Remote
Posted on Apr 17, 2023

What We’re Building

Selling to government has always been hard, and it’s historically stopped companies from even thinking about this market. But things are changing. A surge of technology companies are rising to the occasion and building products to solve the domestic challenges and national security threats we face today. It’s our job to help them be successful, and we’ve raised from an incredible group of investors + have heavy-hitting national security veterans and technology industry advisors behind us to do it.

We’ve started by building a marketplace that solves the most critical pain point for companies - access to relationships + knowledge & skills to navigate the process. We’re bringing access and transparency to an opaque industry, with the government as the stakeholder that ultimately benefits.

This is just our starting point - we have a big vision for where we go from here. And if you’re excited about the intersection of AI and gov/defense, we’re probably for you.

What We’re Looking For

Someone to lead technology & engineering, with previous experience as a full stack developer. You’ll be responsible for architecting and building our platform. Your work will be the basis for our product roadmap and strategy, and you’ll get to see it come to fruition.

You’ll be the first hire on our team, get in on the ground floor, and have serious ownership. As we grow, ideally you will too, both in the in the skills that you acquire as well as responsibilities - building out and leading our engineering organization


The Day-To-Day

  • You’ll be responsible for building and owning features end to end. You decide on how it’s built, what it looks like, and how it works.
  • Set the product roadmap and develop detailed documentation - including timelines and associated milestones
  • Understand customer needs to build a web platform experience that matches closely
  • Develop creative methods for scraping data from disparate online sources
  • Create a first-of-its-kind AI model for the government market
  • Create the foundation for what our product and engineering teams will evolve into

What You’ve Done That We’d Love

  • 4+ years as a Full Stack Developer or similar role
  • You’re relentlessly customer focused and enjoy interacting with them. You have a strong sense of empathy, making their problems your own, then building solutions to solve them.
  • Experience building and owning features end-to-end
  • You enjoy being hands-on-keyboard equally as much as being strategic and setting the roadmap
  • Experience leading other developers preferred, but not required
  • Background working in government, govtech, defense, intel, or government contracting. (Though not required.)
  • Former founder or engineering leader

Tech Stack Experience

  • AWS
  • Full stack JavaScript - React, Typescript, and NodeJS
  • Postgres (or similar SQL)
  • Python (bonus)
  • Previous experience with or ability to learn new AI tools and models
  • Experience scraping data or desire to learn


Why We Might Love Working Together

  • You care about government - We think our work is needed and benefits a system that impacts us all.
  • Perseverance and endurance - Hard problems are worth solving, and solving them can take a long time. There is no such thing as exhausting all options, it’s just time to look for new ones.
  • Empowerment > micro-management - We believe our job is simply to eliminate roadblocks for team members by equipping them with what they need to accomplish goals; we trust their judgment, skills, and experience from there.
  • We’re collaborative and communicate well - Constructive dialogue that takes all viewpoints into account is the only way we get to the right decision. Respect, trust, and complete transparency with each other is critical - keep it all in the open
  • You’re really good at what you do… but it speaks for itself - We’re confident in what we bring to the table, but it comes without ego. Being humble is important to us
  • You don’t mind change and are comfortable with uncertainty - We’re deliberate about setting goals, but we’re comfortable changing course and crawling through mud to get there. We’re still figuring things out, and that demands being flexible and iterative.
  • You like to move fast and have a bias towards action - Our roadmap is directional at this stage - speed and a feeling of urgency is key to prove it out. We expect each other to proactively determine what needs to get done and just go for it. No waiting around.
  • Work doesn’t feel like “work” to you - We’re passionate about what we’re going after, and we devote more time to it than a typical 9-5. That often means putting in some extra time at night and on weekends occasionally. However, maintaining your own personal balance comes above all else, and you should establish that however you need to - flexible schedule, taking advantage of time off, or anything else you need.

The Details - Benefits & Structure

  • We’re building a remote-first team, but for founding team members, we have a strong preference for being located in the Washington, DC area in the early days. But it’s not an excluding factor. The best people, trust, and a cohesive culture matters more.
  • Competitive compensation + Substantial equity - We’re building something big, and you’ll have a lot of ownership in that. This is ours.
  • Flexible vacation time - Use what you want, as long as you’re taking care of what needs to get done.
  • Flexible schedule - We all have other things going on in our lives. Doctor visits, kids’ activities, dog walks, take care of it whenever you need to.
  • Full health and benefits
  • And more…


Our Values

  • Impact – We have high conviction that our work matters and affects important outcomes. And we take a lot of pride in that. If we don’t fix this, who will?
  • Empathy – Our customers’ & users’ problems are our own. We’re grateful for their trust, so we go above and beyond to show it - in both our work and our interactions.
  • Straight Hustle - We get stuff done, no matter what it takes.
  • Integrity - Transparency and respect comes above all else. It’s non-negotiable.
  • Humility – We’re not afraid to admit what we don’t know, and we’re constantly looking for ways to learn and grow.