Join Our Team

As a Founding Engineer, you'll be the technical backbone of Pretorin. You'll own the product architecture, write production code daily, and make the foundational technical decisions that everything else gets built on. This is a hands-on, high-autonomy role for someone who wants to build a company from the ground floor, with the maturity and ambition to grow into a CTO as we scale.

This role is uniquely suited for someone at the intersection of:

• Deep, firsthand experience with the DoD's Authority to Operate (ATO) process.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals — you can architect systems, ship production code, and build things that scale.
• A conviction that AI development tools are a force multiplier. You use them daily.

What You'll Do

• Own the full technical stack from day one — architecture, infrastructure, deployment, and product development.
• Build tools that make the ATO process faster, more transparent, and less painful for defense software teams.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools (Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) as a core part of your workflow.
• Collaborate directly with DoD stakeholders, compliance teams, and end users.
• Evaluate build-or-buy tradeoffs, select the technology stack, and establish engineering practices.
• Contribute to security documentation, architecture diagrams, and compliance artifacts for government authorization.

Required

• U.S. Citizen capable of obtaining and holding a U.S. security clearance (active clearance is a plus).
• Direct experience with the DoD ATO process — you've shepherded a system through authorization, worked with ISSMs/ISSOs, or built tools in this space.
• 5+ years of professional software development with demonstrated ability to ship production systems.
• Proficiency with modern development stacks (cloud-native, containers, CI/CD, IaC) and at least one major language (Python, Go, TypeScript, Rust, etc.).
• Active and enthusiastic user of AI-powered development tools.

Nice to Have

• Experience with NIST RMF, STIG compliance, or FedRAMP authorization frameworks.
• Prior work at a defense tech startup or DoD software factory (Kessel Run, Platform One, AI2C, Army SWF, etc.).
• Familiarity with GovCloud environments (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, IL4/IL5).
• Background in DevSecOps — automated security scanning, SBOM generation, continuous monitoring.
• Experience building or contributing to open-source compliance or security tooling.

Why Pretorin

• Founding equity in a company tackling a massive, underserved market.
• Direct impact: your work shapes the product, the team, and the company's trajectory.
• A team that believes AI-augmented development is the future and builds that way every day.
• Hybrid preferred in Tempe, AZ — open to remote for the right candidate.

Help Pretorin find and close its first customers in government and defense technology. You'll build relationships with software teams that need to get through FedRAMP, CMMC, and DoD RMF — and show them how Pretorin can get them there faster.

What You'll Do

• Identify and engage prospects in the GovTech and defense software ecosystem.
• Run discovery calls, demos, and pilots with early customers.
• Develop go-to-market strategy alongside the founding team.
• Translate customer pain points into product priorities.
• Build partnerships with system integrators, consultants, and channel partners.

What We're Looking For

• Experience selling to or working within government/defense organizations.
• Understanding of compliance frameworks (FedRAMP, CMMC, NIST) or willingness to learn fast.
• Strong communication skills — can simplify technical concepts for non-technical buyers.
• Startup mindset — resourceful, self-directed, comfortable building from scratch.