Founding Engineer

About Pretorin

Pretorin is a venture backed, seed-stage, AI native govtech company on a mission to improve the quality of software on government networks. We build tools and services that help government and defense teams navigate the Authority to Operate (ATO) process faster and with better outcomes. We’re a small, technical founding team based in Tempe, AZ, and we’re looking for our next builder.

The Role

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 who lives at the intersection of three things:

•      Deep, firsthand experience with the DoW’s Authority to Operate (ATO) process. You’ve been through it, you understand the pain points, and you know what “good” looks like on the other side.

•      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 and they’re a core part of how you build software.

What You’ll Do

•      Own the full technical stack from day one, including architecture, infrastructure, deployment, and product development.

•      Build tools and platforms 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 to ship faster and at higher quality.

•      Collaborate directly with DoW stakeholders, compliance teams, and end users to understand requirements and translate them into working software.

•      Evaluate build or buy tradeoffs, select the technology stack, and establish engineering practices that will define Pretorin’s technical culture.

•      Contribute to security documentation, system architecture diagrams, and compliance artifacts required for government authorization.

What We’re Looking For

Required

•      U.S. Citizen capable of obtaining and holding a U.S. security clearance (active clearance is a plus).

•      Direct experience with the DoW 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 experience 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. This is central to how we work.

Nice to Have

•      Experience with NIST RMF, STIG compliance, or FedRAMP authorization frameworks.

•      Prior work at a defense tech startup or within a DoW software factory (Kessel Run, Platform One, AI2C, Army SWF, etc.).

•      Familiarity with GovCloud environments (AWS GovCloud, Azure Government, IL4/IL5).

•      Background in DevSecOps, including automated security scanning, SBOM generation, and 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. ATO compliance is a universal pain point across the defense industrial base.

•      Direct impact: your work will shape 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.

•      Competitive base salary ($150K) plus meaningful equity (2.0% fully diluted with standard 4-year vesting and 1-year cliff).

•      Hybrid preferred in Tempe, AZ, but open to remote for the right candidate.