Founding Frontend Engineer

Location: Los Angeles

Department: Engineering

Location Type: IN_OFFICE

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Employment Type: 

• Full-time
• On-site: Los Angeles, CA (will consider remote/hybrid and/or relocation)

About the Job:

The US military has spent the last 22 years fighting the global war on terror. We have the processes and the technology to target terrorists and mitigate collateral damage. However, we are unprepared for conflict with a peer nation, and that reality threatens global stability.  

At Smack Technologies, our mission is to build software that enables the US and its partners to re-establish deterrence. Our focus is the decision making process for prioritizing targets and for allocating resources against them. 

The current targeting cycle takes 96 hours. Today, this analysis is attempted on whiteboards, PowerPoint, and Excel.  In 96 hours, 30,000 troops could land on Taiwan. It needs to take minutes. It also needs to weigh the opportunity costs and risk profiles of thousands of response options, in near-real time. We can’t afford to waste shots. 

As a Frontend Engineer at Smack, you will build the UI for this complex problem. Our product leverages AI and mathematical optimization. For it to work, the UI must be exceptional at two things. First, it needs to make planning collaborative and simple. Maybe even fun.  Basically, be the opposite of planning in PowerPoint. Second, it needs to enable human-in-the-loop autonomy. The UI is the portal for staff and commanders to interact with Smack’s system at high-value human touchpoints and to audit the system's logic. You will build the visualization tools and dashboards to make this possible. 

As part of our founding team, you’ll have strong ownership over major parts of our system.  You’ll help design the systems, and choose the technologies.

What You’ll Do:

• Design, build, and deploy a collaborative fires planning UI that allows users to rapidly build tasks and prioritize thousands of targets, in near-real time. 
• Design, build, and deploy a course of action (COA) builder UI that allows users to compare COAs generated by Smack’s Joint Targeting System, audit the system’s logic, and commit a COA to action. Integrate geospatial, tabular, and graphical data visualization techniques to simplify COA comparison for commanders. 
• Work side by side with end-users to rapidly iterate on the product. This role requires regular travel to user sites. 
• Rapidly prototype UIs to create great user experiences before building high-quality production versions. 
• Build a high-quality system with good software engineering practices and ensure everything is well-documented.
• Ensure your code is well-tested (but not obsessively going for 100% test coverage).

Our Tech Stack:

• Typescript
• Svelte 5 / SvelteKit (Vite, Jest, Storybook)
• Modern CSS with Tailwind
• Our backend is Python and FastAPI
• As an early-stage startup, we are trying to find the right balance of enough process to have high-quality software that doesn’t require heroics to maintain, but not too much process that would waste time. You’ll help to determine this balance.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelors in Computer Science, Operations Research, or another relevant technical degree (or strong demonstrated professional software engineering skills–the bar for non-traditional developers is high, but we’re open)
• Proficient in Typescript, CSS, and modern web development
• Eligible to obtain a TS/SCI security clearance

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Svelte (or enjoy learning new frameworks)
• You love working on interesting tech problems–if you’ve built your own personal or open source projects that’s great.
• You like improving UI/UX and other aspects of the product.
• Have worked with mapping or other geographic APIs
• Active TS/SCI security clearance 

Who You Are:

• You are mission driven, and want to solve our nation’s greatest security challenges. 
• You love working on a team where we collaborate to solve a huge external challenge.
• You want to own taking a product UI from zero to one.  
• You savor a good challenge. We’re a start-up. We have many.
• You work well with others. As a startup we’ll have to work together to figure out a lot of unknowns.

We offer:

• Competitive salary depending on level (typically $120-$170k)
• Competitive stock options (typically .2%-.5%)
• Health care (including PPO and family coverage)
• 401(k), Dental, Vision, etc plans