# Principal Engineering Lead **Herding Cats Research LLC** · Remote (United States) · Full-time, exempt · One opening --- ## The Role This is the technical-leadership seat. You will set architecture direction for HCR's research codebase, mentor a small bench of senior engineers, and own the integration story across concurrent research lines. You will be the principal engineer the founder trusts to catch the design mistake before it ships. You will **not** be a people manager with fifteen reports. You will be a working principal engineer with three to five senior peers, the authority to make hard calls, and a voice in customer-facing program conversations. On any given week you might: - Review architecture for a new multi-agent coordination prototype and tell the team what they are under-counting. - Pair with a senior engineer on a hairy concurrency bug and teach them how to find the next one themselves. - Join a customer review at a research agency, answer hard questions on the technical approach, and negotiate scope without selling the team out. - Hold a line on engineering standards — test coverage, commit hygiene, documentation — when a deadline is trying to erode them. - Write the technical volume of the next research proposal in prose that reads like a working engineer wrote it, not like marketing did. --- ## You Might Be a Fit If - You have **twelve-plus years of software engineering** with at least **four years in a staff/principal/tech-lead capacity** at a credible shop — a defense AI firm, a research lab, a systems-heavy startup, or a program office with real code output. - You can read a seven-engineer team's commits in an hour and tell the founder, honestly, who is carrying load and who needs support. - You have designed systems that survived contact with real users, real adversaries, or real production. - You can write — clean technical prose, proposal sections, architecture decision records — without complaint. - You are comfortable as the senior technical voice in a conversation with a government program manager, a DARPA PM, or a JCS staffer — meaning: prepared, direct, uncertain when uncertain, and never bluffing. - You have opinions about Swift vs. Rust vs. Python for edge compute, and you can hold those opinions without turning every design review into a litigation. --- ## Strong Plus (Not Required) - **Prior military technical leadership** — O-3 to O-5 time as a Signal, Cyber, Intelligence, or technical acquisition officer; or senior NCO with 25- or 35-series background. You will not have to translate. - Active DoD security clearance (Secret or higher). - Prior delivery against DARPA, AFRL, ARL, ONR, DIU, SOCOM, or service-lab research programs. - Experience scaling an engineering team from three to ten — the awkward zone where process is still mostly human. - Published research or technical-book contributions in ML, autonomy, HCI, or systems. --- ## What You Will Own First - **Architecture council of one.** You are the first and last technical review on every non-trivial design. - **Engineering standards.** You set and enforce the commit, test, review, and documentation conventions that the team will still be using when we hire number ten. - **Mentorship.** Two senior engineers currently in the hiring pipeline will look to you as first reader and coach. - **Technical proposals.** You lead the technical volume on the next research proposal cycle with the principal. You will report directly to the founder. You will have the authority to say "not this" when the founder is wrong, and the professional bearing to say it in a way that makes the team stronger. --- ## Compensation **Base salary range:** $200,000 – $260,000. **Equity:** 0.5% – 2.0% of HCR, structured as a profits-interest grant with a four-year vesting schedule (one-year cliff, monthly thereafter). Specific grant depends on start date and scope. **Why the range is tight at the top.** HCR is a research LLC, not a venture-capital product company — upside is contract revenue and ownership, not a moonshot exit. If you need a 9-figure-outcome lottery ticket, we are not that. If you want senior authority, meaningful equity, and work that matters, we are. The range is disclosed in compliance with pay-transparency laws in California, Colorado, New York, and Washington. --- ## Logistics - **Work authorization:** You must be authorized to work in the United States at hire. No visa sponsorship at this time. - **U.S. person eligibility:** Required. - **Security clearance:** **Eligible for TS/SCI.** HCR will sponsor. Active Secret preferred; candidates with current TS/SCI strongly preferred. - **Location:** Remote anywhere in the continental U.S. Quarterly in-person in Austin, TX. Expect moderate travel (roughly 15 – 20% of the year) to customer sites, program reviews, and recruiting. - **Employment type:** W-2 full-time, exempt. - **Start date:** Target Q2–Q3 2026. --- ## How to Apply Send your application to **`[email protected]`**. - **Subject line:** `[Principal Engineering Lead] – Last Name, First Name` - **Attachments:** Resume as `LastName_FirstName_Resume.pdf`. Please include a one-page **technical memo** (your choice of topic) — something you have actually written that shows how you think on paper. - **Cover letter:** Optional, but include if you are transitioning from government service or from a different industry; use the space to connect the work you have done to the work we do. You will receive an auto-acknowledgment within one business hour. Expect a substantive response within ten business days. --- ## Process 1. **Screening call** with the principal (45 minutes). Background, mission fit, what you are looking for. 2. **Architecture conversation** (90 minutes). Walk us through a system you designed. We will pressure-test. 3. **Proposal-writing exercise** (take-home, 3 – 5 hours). A tight technical volume on an HCR-relevant problem. Paid at $150/hour up to 5 hours. 4. **Final conversation with the principal** (60 minutes). Scope, compensation, equity structure, questions. 5. **Offer.** Conditional on background check, I-9, and clearance process kickoff. Total time: four to six weeks. Respect for candidate time is a two-way commitment. --- > **Equal Opportunity & Accessibility** > > Herding Cats Research LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants with disabilities — to request one, email `[email protected]` with subject `[Accommodation Request]`. > > We actively welcome applications from veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses. HCR complies with USERRA. > > **Work Authorization.** All applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. HCR verifies eligibility through the I-9 process and does not currently sponsor employment visas. This role requires U.S. person status under 22 CFR § 120.62. > > **Employment Terms.** Employment is at-will. Either party may terminate the relationship at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. Offers are contingent upon satisfactory background check consistent with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. > > **Applicant Privacy.** Application materials are used solely for hiring evaluation, retained for 12 months, and then securely deleted. California applicants: see our full CCPA notice on the Careers page.