Founding Engineer — (Hardware/Systems)

About Draco Intelligence

Draco Intelligence is an early-stage dual-use hardware company building ultralight AR HUD systems for high-movement environments across sport and defense . Our products deliver mission-critical, glanceable information directly in the user’s line of sight—designed for moments where attention, speed, and clarity matter.

We are passionate about movement and love tackling hard problems at the intersection of design, performance, and national security . Our work focuses on building systems that perform reliably across a wide range of real-world environments where speed, precision, and situational awareness are critical.

Founded in Cambridge, MA and now operating from New York, NY, our team brings experience across Harvard, MIT, Google, and government-adjacent research and engineering programs. We work closely with special ops units , athletes, and other high-performance users to validate designs and stress-test systems early—before expanding to broader applications.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Founding Engineer to help design, prototype, and iterate on the supporting hardware systems that enable our wearable platform to operate reliably under motion and environmental constraints.

This is a highly hands-on role within a small, execution-focused team. You’ll work on physical hardware, electronics, and system-level behavior under tight constraints, collaborating closely with teammates responsible for optics, AR, and software.

This role is well-suited for someone who enjoys building tangible systems, solving ambiguous problems, and working on hardware that must perform beyond controlled settings.

What You’ll Work On

• Designing and prototyping hardware subsystems and modules that support a wearable platform
• Working across electronics, firmware bring-up, and physical packaging to deliver reliable hardware
• Operating under tight constraints around size, weight, power, latency, and environmental stress
• Testing hardware across a range of high-movement and real-world environments
• Collaborating with teammates to ensure clean interfaces and system reliability
• Supporting early manufacturing and design-for-iteration decisions
  

What We’re Looking For

• Background in hardware engineering, mechatronics, embedded systems, or systems engineering
• Experience building real, physical hardware (wearables, robotics, aerospace, defense, IoT, etc.)
• Comfortable working across disciplines without owning the entire stack
• Strong hands-on prototyping, debugging, and iteration skills
• Bias toward execution, speed, and learning through building

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience with low-power systems, wireless communication, or sensor integration
• Experience working in constrained or high-reliability environments
• Comfort operating in early-stage, fast-moving teams

Compensation

This is a founding-team role that begins with equity participation , with a planned transition to full-time compensation as the company progresses. Ownership and scope will reflect responsibility and impact.