Software Engineer: Networking & Hardware-in-the-Loop

First Order Effects · Austin, TX

Who We Are

First Order Effects (FOE) is building America's Infrastructure Prime for the robotic era. Autonomous ships, drones, and robots are rewriting how the world moves, fights, and builds - but none of them work without infrastructure to power them, connect them, and launch and recover them. That's what we build.

We've Built Cutting Edge Systems at Legendary Companies

Our team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, Saronic, Lockheed Skunk Works, Forterra, and Fuse Energy. Before founding FOE, we built satellite ground stations that closed a national comms gap in days, deployed multi-megawatt power systems at commercial speed, and shipped autonomous surface vessels into Navy fleet production. We've built infrastructure at lightspeed before - now we're applying that playbook to an entire company.

The Role

• Own the network inside Surge Hub, our rapidly deployable power system. Take today's early design and turn it into a secure, production-ready architecture.
• Segment traffic so control traffic stays isolated, while the devices that need internet connectivity get a clean, secure path out.
• Build for uptime: backup WAN, failover, and a network that holds when a link drops in the field.
• Design with security in mind from the first switch, not as a retrofit.
• Own the hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) test network in our Austin warehouse. Bring every Surge Hub component onto one test network and drive it with your code.
• Write portable test and automation software for Surge Hub and its test equipment, and integrate it with the product's C/C++ firmware and software.
• Build it from the ground up. You pick the equipment, set the architecture, and own the result.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and own HITL test systems: rack the hardware, connect it, and make software test it for real.
• Configure and maintain real networks, including switches, routers, VLANs, subnets, and firewalls, on hardware that ships.
• Live in Linux day to day.
• Write automation and test code in Python.
• Take projects from idea to outcome without waiting for a spec. Two or more years doing this on hardware products counts for more than a long resume of adjacent work.
• Bring a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or the shipped work that proves the same.

What We're Looking For

• Network security depth: segmentation, hardening, firewall policy, and secure remote access.
• C and C++. Surge Hub firmware and software are written in them.
• A background in hardware or embedded products: power, aerospace, automotive, robotics, or defense. The domain matters less than the hardware.
• Startup experience, or time at a hard-tech company where you owned more than your title said.

Compensation

$140,000–$200,000 base + equity + benefits.

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations (ITAR/EAR), applicants must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). Candidates must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance; active clearance not required.