---
title: 'Perception Hardware Integration Engineer at Furientis'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/perception-hardware-integration-engineer-furientis-los-angeles-j7g9rbpyp56v'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-07'
---

# Perception Hardware Integration Engineer at Furientis

- **Company:** Furientis
- **Location:** Los Angeles, CA
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-25
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/furientis/b760ebed-a8a7-47bd-bb4d-61f72c30117d

## Job description

America is critically deficient in production of defensive munitions- we currently produce shipborne interceptors in the few hundreds per year while our adversaries are producing offensive threats in the tens of thousands per year. Furientis was started to help solve this problem- introducing a new class of cost-effective, high production rate, interceptor missiles. We're seeking motivated individuals who internalize this problem and are eager to apply their past experience in similar industries (aerospace, defense, automotive/racing, robotics) and out of the box thinking to solve this problem for the US and its allies.

## About the Team

The Seeker Team builds the eyes and the targeting logic of our weapon system: a low-cost, mass-producible, multimodal missile seeker that leans on commercial supply chains where they outperform the defense legacy, with supply-chain security engineered in from day one. On a modern missile, the seeker is 40 to 60% of unit cost and often drives overly long delivery cycles; accordingly, the seeker team is at the tip of the spear for delivering value to our customers and to the taxpayer.

Seeker design has exactly two real constraints: physics and mission. Supply chain, vendor lead time, qualification cost, "the way it's always been done": none of that stops us. We are a small, deeply technical team that drives capability through ingenuity and bias for action and ships hardware that flies. This is a wear-many-hats environment where you must be comfortable "building the airplane in flight" and stepping well outside your comfort zone; a narrowly scoped role with clean handoffs is not what this team offers.

This is an AI-native team. Through fluent use of cutting-edge agentic coding tools, one engineer here consistently out-delivers a much larger conventional team. You will have opinions about where these tools help and where they do not, provide governance input, and build AI into your workflow from day one.

## About the Role

You own the seeker as a working system, from the first prototype on the bench to every unit that follows. You take the capability architecture (cameras, compute, IMUs, power) and a specified, tested optical assembly, and make one working seeker out of them: integrated, brought up, calibrated, and qualified. First light on the first article is yours, and so is the discipline that makes build ten identical to build nine. You report to the seeker lead and work in tight partnership with the opto-mechanical engineer: they own how well the seeker sees; you own the seeker itself. This is a role for an engineer who has fielded complete camera or electro-optical products end to end, in an environment where escapes are not an option. Prior thermal infrared experience is preferred, but not strictly required.

## What You'll Do

- Own the physical integration of the seeker: master CAD, packaging, harnessing, connectors, and assembly sequence, inside the mass, volume, power, and cost budgets.
- Own the seeker build: the lens-to-FPA marriage, electronics integration, first-article bring-up, and system-level debug.
- Run the detector trade: vendor engagement, eval-kit bring-up, and bench characterization of candidate FPAs.
- Own calibration: non-uniformity correction, bad-pixel maps, radiometric cal, and boresight, developed on the first articles and pipelined to every unit that follows.
- Own seeker test and acceptance: stations and instrumentation you can prove trustworthy, and the data package that shows each unit performs.
- Own seeker-level environmental qualification campaigns, and run failures to root cause.
- Own the seeker supply chain and test infrastructure: every purchased item rides your system.
- Automate everything you touch twice, and build so the next unit is the same as the last.

## Skills We're Hiring For

- B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Electrical Engineering, or related.
- 8+ years of hands-on integration of precision imaging or electro-optical hardware, from component selection through qualification.
- Demonstrated mastery of a complete imaging chain: sensor and lens selection against performance requirements (SNR, QE, pixel pitch, MTF), optics, mechanics, electronics, and software.
- Rapid prototype iteration: breadboard-to-brassboard builds, quick-turn fabrication, and test rigs improvised from eval kits and what's on the bench.
- System-level debug across domains: can chase an image-quality fault through optics, electronics, firmware, and thermal to root cause.
- Experimental discipline: characterization campaigns, optical alignment and metrology fundamentals, instrumentation you can trust, and data that separates signal from setup artifact.
- Strong CAD and GD&T; packaging dense assemblies into tight envelopes; comfortable at an electronics bench.
- Test automation in Python or similar; daily use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code or similar).

Bonus Points For

- LWIR or MWIR camera integration or calibration experience.
- Environmental qualification of flight, airborne, or munition-class hardware.
- High-volume manufacturing background with production quality statistics (Gage R&R, Cpk, yield and escape analysis).
- Hobbyist drone build and flight experience.

Eligibility & Logistics Location: On-site at our Los Angeles, CA HQ; remote work is not available. Monthly weekend travel for test events and supplier engagements. Clearance: A clearance is not required for this position. Must be a U.S. Person. Equal Opportunity & Export Compliance Furientis is an equal-opportunity employer. To comply with U.S. export control laws, employment is contingent on eligibility to access export-controlled information.

## About Furientis

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Furientis is a defense technology startup building low-cost, production-scalable interceptor missile systems for the U.S. military.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Pre-seed)
- **Headquarters**: El Segundo, California, USA (operates out of a facility in Playa Vista, Los Angeles)
- **Founded**: 2025
- **Founders**: Brody Franzen (CEO) and Aris Simsarian

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Aerospace & Defense / Defense Technology
- **Target customers**: U.S. military and defense organizations, particularly naval and ship-based interceptor procurement buyers
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "We believe the future of warfare is dictated by production capacity, and our current system of manufacturing critical defensive munitions cannot meet demand." The company aims to build cost-effective defensive munitions at scale.

## Products & Services
- **F 1.0 Interceptor Missile System**: A low-cost interceptor missile architected for an annual production volume of 1,000 units per factory. Designed to counter low-cost threats (drones, cruise missiles) that are expensive to stop with legacy systems. Uses automotive-style materials and assembly processes, commercial off-the-shelf components, and in-house solid rocket motors to achieve a cost of ~$250,000 per missile versus the $1–$5 million normally spent per interceptor.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (Private, early-stage)
- **Key Metric**: $5M total funding raised (Pre-Seed round, announced May 2026)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Silent Ventures (lead), Bessemer Venture Partners, Multiball Capital, SV Angel, Humba Ventures, BVVC, Liquid 2 Ventures, MVP Ventures, Channel 39 Ventures, Vanderbilt University, Gaingels. Angel investors include founders of Anduril, Armada, and Erebor.
- **Growth Signals**: Emerging from stealth with $5M pre-seed; completed six flight tests and ten static-fire tests within its first six months; named a finalist in the Office of Naval Research Tactical Missile Innovation Challenge; actively hiring with 4+ open roles; projected "significant demonstrations" later in 2026.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Design for manufacturing from day one**: Unlike legacy primes that spend a year on modeling before building hardware, Furientis runs four-week design cycles with monthly flight tests—a "build fast, test often" approach.
- **In-house solid rocket motor production**: Most primes outsource this critical component, creating supply chain bottlenecks. Furientis makes its own, giving it control over the most constrained piece of the supply chain.
- **Cost advantage**: Target price is ~$250,000 per missile vs. $1M–$5M for incumbent systems from primes like Lockheed Martin, enabled by automotive-style materials, off-the-shelf components, and simplified assembly.
- **Production scalability**: Designed from scratch for a throughput of 1,000 units per year per factory, addressing the core national security bottleneck of ammunition production capacity.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale production**: Move from prototype flight testing to initial production tooling and build-out of a 9,000-square-foot Los Angeles factory.
- **Team expansion**: Actively hiring elite engineers across opto-mechanical, perception hardware, and finance roles to accelerate development.
- **Demonstrate to the Navy**: Use ongoing flight tests and the ONR challenge to secure a production contract with the U.S. Navy.
- **Prove the thesis**: Continue monthly flight tests to validate the cost and performance of its interceptor system.

## Why Work Here
- **High-impact mission**: Work directly on solving a critical U.S. national security shortage—the ability to produce defensive munitions at the volumes needed to counter modern threats.
- **Fast-paced engineering culture**: Four-week design cycles, monthly flight tests, and a "build and break things" mentality that contrasts with slow, traditional defense primes.
- **Elite team and mentorship**: Leadership includes veterans of Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, and Castelion (a hypersonics startup that raised $350M). Advisors/investors include founders of Anduril and Armada—among the most successful modern defense startups.
- **On-site in Los Angeles**: Roles are on-site in the Playa Vista / El Segundo area. The office is notably located in Lenny Kravitz’s former studio.
- **Early-stage equity**: Joining at pre-seed stage ($5M raised) provides significant ownership potential for early engineers alongside a small, tight-knit team (11-50 employees).
- **Active hiring**: As of mid-2026, open roles include Senior Opto-Mechanical Engineer, Perception Hardware Integration Engineer, and Finance Manager.

## Sources
1. [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/furientis)
2. [Fortune (Exclusive launch article)](https://fortune.com/2026/05/14/furientis-missiles-defense-anduril-military-drone-interceptors/)
3. [PitchBook](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/894465-28)
4. [Fusion42 Profile](https://scout.fusion-42.com/startups/ff72fe16-9489-4f67-ae18-a3c6dd66edd4)
5. [Clera](https://www.getclera.com/companies/furientis)

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