--- title: 'Founding Creative & Videographer at Aurelius Systems' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-creative-videographer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-gsb824cz4mnx' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-29' --- # Founding Creative & Videographer at Aurelius Systems - **Company:** Aurelius Systems - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $100k–$120k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-28 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-29 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems/258f2675-b352-43b4-be12-56f21482a1f8 ## Job description Who We Are: Aurelius Systems is a VC backed defense tech startup building autonomous, edge deployed directed energy systems for counter-UAS. We build laser weapons to shoot down drones. We're a small team of engineers, former US military, and subject matter experts scaling America's directed energy dominance. The first cost effective, reliable and robust laser weapon system. Our namesake isn't an accident. Marcus Aurelius wrote about doing the work in front of you, every day, without excuses. Henry Ford didn't wait for permission to reinvent manufacturing. That's how we operate small team, unreasonable output, no hiding behind the unachievable. In addition to our San Francisco lab, we opened our Detroit manufacturing hub and field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range. ## The Role and Your Impact You own the way Aurelius is seen. The visual system, the narrative, the shots, the cuts, the stories we tell about what we’re building and the people building it. Factory floor in Detroit. Field tests on the range. Founders working late in SF. Lasers hitting drones at full power. All of it, through your lens. We want someone who looks at the hardest stuff happening at the company and figures out how to make it feel as real and as important as it actually is. You’re not just capturing content, you’re building the way the world comes to understand directed energy and the team doing it in America. That’s a big seat for the right person who wants that kind of ownership. You’ll travel with the team. You’ll be in the room for things most creatives never get to see. You’ll ship fast, you’ll shoot more than we can post, and you’ll have real ownership on what makes it out the door. ## What You’ll Own - Visual and narrative system for Aurelius across YouTube, X, and launch content - Shoot, edit, and ship end to end. Camera to final cut - Factory and shop floor documentation in Detroit and SF - Field test coverage on the 400-acre range. Lasers hitting drones. Real footage, not stock - Founder and ghost writing short, punchy, high-cadence - Long-form product and launch films that set the standard for how defense tech gets shown - The branding and company look. You make the hard engineering actually look as cool as it is ## What We’re Looking For - Shipped real YouTube. Channel, series, or long-form product or factory films you owned end to end - Portfolio that proves it. Reel plus links. No resumes - Gone viral or broken through on X or YouTube with hardware, industrial, auto, aerospace, or defense-adjacent work - Set the look for something and then gotten behind the camera and cut it yourself - Talked shop with at least one founder shipping real product, not just decks - Native English speaker Where You Probably Come From: Hardware or industrial YouTube channels you ran yourself. Auto, aerospace, or defense creative shops where you did more than one job. Studios where you were the whole stack from brief to delivery. Founder-adjacent creative seats where the content shipped fast and performed. We Want to Talk If: You’ve built an audience from scratch on hard-to-film subjects. You’ve made industrial look beautiful. You’ve shot in environments most creatives would never go. You want the ownership and the range of a founding seat. Not a Fit If: You direct and don’t shoot. You need an agency wrapper around you to work. Your reel is all polish and no substance. ## How You Operate - Bias for action. You shoot before you storyboard - Travel without complaint. Detroit, SF, range sites, demos - Comfortable embedded with engineers for hours getting one shot right - Native taste for what’s cool and what’s filler - Self-directed. You find the shot and go get it ## Why Join Aurelius - Direct report to the CEO - Visual and narrative DNA of the company starts with you - Real subject matter. Lasers, drones, factories, field tests. Not slide decks - Your work ships to real audiences, not internal decks - Travel the country shooting down drones with lasers. If that doesn’t sound like a dream, this isn’t it How We Work: Core hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 6. When we're sprinting toward a demo or field test, the team ramps up — nights, weekends, whatever it takes to ship. When the sprint lands, we ramp down. We don't manufacture intensity for show. Benefits: - Competitive salary and equity - United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage - Flexible 18 days PTO plus 5 sick days - Travel to field test events and range days - Covered daily lunches and office snacks and drinks - E-bike and scooter stipend up to $500 - Direct access to leadership and real ownership over your work Export Control Notice: This role requires access to export-controlled information or items that require U.S. Person status. As defined by U.S. law, individuals who are any one of the following are considered to be a U.S. Person: (1) U.S. citizens, (2) legal permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), and (3) certain protected classes of asylees and refugees, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3). ## About Aurelius Systems ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Aurelius Systems builds autonomous, directed-energy laser systems to neutralize drone threats for military and defense applications. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, CA, USA - **Founded**: Not publicly available (likely 2024 or early 2025 based on funding timeline) - **Founders**: Michael LaFramboise (CEO, Co-Founder), John Marmaduke (CTO, Co-Founder) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Defense and Space Manufacturing (Directed Energy / Counter-UAS) - **Target customers**: Military and defense organizations (DoD, allied nations) needing scalable, cost-effective defense against unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/drones). - **Mission or purpose statement**: "Build the future of defense with autonomous directed energy built to stop drone threats at the speed of light, for the cost of electricity, anywhere they appear." ## Products & Services - **[Archimedes]**: An autonomous counter-UAS laser defense system. Combines high-power directed energy lasers, advanced optical sensors, and AI-driven autonomy to detect, track, and neutralize aerial threats in seconds. Designed for field-portability, rapid deployment, and operation in a networked "defense grid" formation. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed - **Key Metric**: $10.0M in total funding (Seed round, closed October 2025) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: General Catalyst (lead), Draper Associates (lead), and 9 other unnamed investors. The company has also been selected by the U.S. Army for testing (T-REX 26-2 exercise). - **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew +187.5% year-over-year (to ~16 employees). 17 active job postings (monthly postings up +13.3%, quarterly +240%). Demonstrated live field performance at a major U.S. Army exercise in June 2026. ## Competitive Advantages - **Cost-per-kill advantage**: Directed energy lasers fire for the cost of electricity (dollars per shot) vs. traditional missile-based counter-UAS systems that cost "hundreds of thousands per kill." - **Full autonomy**: The system uses machine learning and optical sensing to detect and engage threats without requiring a human operator to watch a screen — a stated differentiator from other solutions on the market. - **Speed of light engagement**: Neutralizes threats in seconds, not minutes. - **COTS-based hardware**: Built on commercial off-the-shelf components for lower cost, faster production, and easier maintenance. - **Field-proven**: Successfully demonstrated in adverse weather during the T-REX 26-2 exercise. ## Strategic Focus - Scaling the company and its manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand from the U.S. military and allied nations. - Deploying a networked defense grid of multiple Archimedes units for persistent, scalable protection of forces, facilities, and critical infrastructure. - Continuing rapid R&D iterations driven by real-world field testing. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven work**: Directly contribute to protecting warfighters and critical assets — "build something that matters." - **Fast-paced, small team culture**: Described as a small team that moves fast, tests in the field, and owns the full lifecycle from R&D to deployment. - **Early-stage impact**: With only ~16 employees, new hires will have outsized influence and responsibility on the core product. - **Location**: Based in San Francisco, CA — one of the few defense companies in a city built for tech talent. - **Benefits**: Full medical, dental, and vision (United Healthcare), 18 days PTO + flexible sick days + 2-week winter break, daily catered lunch + stocked snacks, commuter stipend (up to $500 toward e-bike/scooter), on-site gym, and professional development reimbursement. - **Work model**: In-office presence (San Francisco HQ). No hybrid/remote-first policy stated. - **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on building hard things quickly, robotics, photonics, mechanical engineering, and AI/ML autonomy. ## Sources 1. [aureliussystems.com](https://www.aureliussystems.com/) 2. [aureliussystems.com/careers](https://www.aureliussystems.com/careers) 3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/aureliussystems) 4. [linkedin.com/company/aurelius-systems](https://www.linkedin.com/company/aurelius-systems) 5. [aureliussystems.com/leadership](https://www.aureliussystems.com/leadership) ## Other roles at Aurelius Systems - [Senior Manager, Defense Programs](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manager-defense-programs-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-v70j9g67b3xp) — San Francisco, CA - [Sr. Mechanical Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-mechanical-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-9be7xhn6d9cp) — San Francisco, CA - [Executive Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-z17cgny0aba5) — San Francisco, CA - [Perception Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/perception-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-xfb0j0b71s8c) — San Francisco, CA - [Principal Hardware Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-hardware-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-7ngv4y53at3v) — San Francisco, CA - [Sr. Optical Engineer, R&D](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-optical-engineer-r-d-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-0kacrfmehv7b) — San Francisco, CA - [Sr. Robotics Engineer, Controls](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-robotics-engineer-controls-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-yfydw5rp3nj6) — San Francisco, CA - [Sr. Robotics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-robotics-software-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-x54e2cgz64yq) — San Francisco, CA - [Sr. ML Engineer, Perception](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-ml-engineer-perception-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-skcyhe7p0hv8) — San Francisco, CA - [Principal Robotics Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-robotics-software-engineer-aurelius-systems-san-francisco-z9ykvnmpcz6z) — San Francisco, CA