Software Engineer

Who we are

Our name is inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Citizenship in a Republic’ speech, which pays homage to the ‘(hu)man in the Arena’. To us, entering the Arena means committing oneself fully and accepting the risk of failure in the pursuit of an audacious, worthy cause.

We’re a close-knit team of scientists and builders redefining the future of hardware engineering. If you share our passion for delving deep into real-world problems and solving them with fully autonomous AI, join us in the Arena.

What we do

Our collective future is being built in the physical world, but the builders of tomorrow’s technology can no longer rely on yesterday’s tools. At Arena, we’re building the world’s first AI industrial engineer designed to solve the most complex hardware and manufacturing challenges. Our product, Atlas, is built with an understanding of the behavior of physical systems, powered by a superior knowledge of core domains of physics. Paired with its ability to reason about multimodal industrial data, Atlas can test, debug, optimize, and repair physical systems and products in the real world. Arena is already trusted by some of the most advanced industrial companies in the world (AMD, Bausch & Lomb), and we're rapidly already scaling into the defense, automotive, and pharmaceuticals industries, and we’re just getting started.

About the role

As a Software Engineer at Arena, you will work to help build and scale our core Atlas platform. This will include designing multi-agent systems, architecting and building multimodal agentic workflows, analyzing internet-scale datasets, evaluating, training, and fine-tuning large models, and developing new E2E features built on Arena’s product stack. You will work closely with our Product and Go-To-Market teams to ensure a rapid iteration loop that incorporates customer and user feedback. You will be responsible for building scalable and performant software and experiences.

Responsibilities

• Own critical system components
Design and implement the core technical architecture behind Atlas’s advanced AI capabilities for hardware testing and optimization. Translate complex hardware-focused workflow requirements into robust, highly scalable solutions that deliver real value to engineers in industries such as semiconductors, automotive, and aerospace.

• Achieve O(1) universal retrieval
Develop and refine our large-scale data ingestion and indexing platform, ensuring constant-time latency for indexing and retrieving any hardware or test-related documentation, telemetry, or simulation results—regardless of data volume.

• Deliver Atlas in the physical world
Bring Atlas to the lab-bench by building integrations with engineering systems of record, and laboratory + test-bench hardware systems to deliver agentic control of end-to-end hardware engineering workflows.

• Drive performance optimization
Architect and implement high-throughput, low-latency pipelines that fuse cutting-edge LLMs with physics-informed deep learning models. Ensure Atlas operates efficiently at scale, leveraging real-time telemetry and historic multimodal data to optimize hardware performance.

• Champion user-centric engineering
Collaborate directly with hardware engineers and technical stakeholders to gain deep insight into their real-world testing and debugging challenges. Translate this empathy into innovative features that empower engineers to iterate faster and achieve breakthroughs in hardware design.

You Have

• 5+ years of software development experience at a venture-backed startup or top technology company, with a focus on distributed systems and platform engineering.

• Proficient in building backend and distributed systems

• Demonstrated interest and familiarity with building multi-agent systems.

• Deep understanding of scalable system design, performance optimization, and resilience engineering.

• Extensive experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Skilled at analyzing complex problems, proposing innovative solutions, and communicating technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Comfortable with rapid prototyping and iterating based on user feedback.

• Self-directed and excited to take ownership of major initiatives.

• Proven track record of leading software development projects and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Strong interpersonal and communication skills to support a collaborative and inclusive work culture.

Nice to have

• An interest in and experience with hardware, electrical engineering, and how AI can accelerate these domains

Requirements

• Willingness to work in our NYC or San Francisco office 5 days a week. Relocation assistance is available.

• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally to customer locations, with travel making up approximately 10%-15% of your time.

Benefits & Perks Include

• 99% of the monthly premium for Aetna medical insurance, plus vision and dental coverage

• 401(k) Retirement Plan

• Unlimited PTO

• Lunch every day from local restaurants via Sharebite

The base salary range for this position is $150,000 - $225,000 yr. However, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. In addition to base salary, we also offer competitive equity and benefits packages.

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Please note that any offer for employment may be conditioned on authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export control laws and regulations without sponsorship for an export license.