--- title: 'Principal Frontend Engineer at HavocAI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-frontend-engineer-havocai-remote-chmge5yngb38' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-05' --- # Principal Frontend Engineer at HavocAI - **Company:** HavocAI - **Location:** Remote - **Compensation:** $185k–$205k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-09-24 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/havocai/6ef8d155-1242-4d3d-881c-cbb4a2030a5c ## Job description About Us: Havoc is a leader in all-domain collaborative autonomy. Its software-defined hardware approach powers military and commercial-grade autonomous systems across sea, air, and land to sense, decide, and act together in complex and contested environments. Havoc connects assets, enabling them to share information, adapt in real time, and continue operating even when communications are disrupted or denied. Havoc optimizes mission performance and minimizes human risk. Havoc was founded in 2024 and headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. Learn more at [Havoc: All-Domain Collaborative Autonomy](http://havocai.com/) . ## About the Role HavocAI is seeking a Principal Frontend Engineer to help architect, build, and scale the real-time interfaces operators use to command autonomous systems across air, surface, and subsurface domains. Our operators command autonomous vehicles across air, surface, and subsurface domains through a single real-time geospatial interface. Live position and state data streams continuously onto a map, and the decisions made on that screen affect vehicles operating in the real world. We are looking for a Principal Frontend Engineer with deep, hands-on experience building and scaling real-time geospatial applications. You have taken systems like this through significant growth in data volume and entity count, and you know from experience which problems arrive at each stage and how to get ahead of them. You will work directly with the Head of Frontend and a strong senior team, bringing that experience to the technical decisions that shape how the platform grows. This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports. ## What You’ll Do Frontend Architecture & Real-Time Systems Geospatial Engineering - Bring proven, production-tested patterns for high-frequency real-time data in React applications: transport-to-render design, update throttling, and keeping telemetry off the render path - Guide the design and evolution of the map layer system: layer lifecycle, interaction state, feature identity, and rendering performance on large feature sets - Work with the Head of Frontend and senior engineers on scaling decisions, contributing the perspective of someone who has made them before - Build alongside the team: implement the hard parts, set the example in code, and review with an eye toward what will hold up at scale - Identify performance and architectural risks early, before they become incidents - Communicate technical decisions clearly through design reviews, technical proposals, and code, building alignment without creating unnecessary process - Mentor senior engineers in real-time and geospatial engineering ## What We’re Looking For - 10+ years of frontend engineering experience, including significant experience operating at Staff, Principal, or equivalent technical scope. - Deep production experience building and scaling high-volume, real-time applications. - Expert-level experience with React and TypeScript, including a first-principles understanding of React’s rendering model and frontend performance. - Deep experience building map-based geospatial applications using MapLibre, Mapbox GL, [Deck.gl](http://Deck.gl), or equivalent technologies. - Demonstrated experience optimizing large and dynamic geospatial feature sets. - Hands-on experience scaling a real-time application through significant growth in tracked entities, update frequency, or data volume. - Experience with multiple real-time communication technologies such as WebSockets, MQTT, gRPC-web, SSE, or similar protocols. - Deep browser performance expertise across rendering, memory, CPU, networking, and GPU bottlenecks. - Experience designing client-side data architectures using workers, batching, caching, state boundaries, and other techniques for isolating high-frequency workloads. - Experience designing applications for degraded or intermittent connectivity, including reconnection and state reconciliation. - Strong software architecture and systems-design fundamentals. - Demonstrated ability to make sound technical tradeoffs and sequence architectural changes within a production system. - Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical direction without relying on formal authority. - High ownership and comfort operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous engineering environment. ## Nice to Have - Experience taking an internal operational tool to a multi-tenant product - Data visualization depth (D3, custom charting, large-dataset rendering) - 3D and WebGL: three.js, custom shaders, terrain, or vertically distributed asset rendering - Experience with defense, aerospace, robotics, or other operationally critical systems What Success Looks Like Within your first 12 months, you will have: - Helped establish a frontend architecture capable of supporting significantly greater numbers of autonomous assets, telemetry streams, and real-time updates. - Improved the performance, responsiveness, and reliability of HavocAI’s geospatial interfaces. - Established scalable patterns for real-time data ingestion, state management, geospatial rendering, and degraded-connectivity scenarios. - Identified and addressed architectural risks before they became constraints on product or platform growth. - Raised the technical bar across the frontend organization through hands-on engineering, design reviews, architecture, and mentorship. Benefits: - 100% Employer paid Health Insurance - Dental and Vision Insurance for you and your families - Life Insurance (Employer Paid) - Ability to participate in the companies 401k program (Matching) - Unlimited PTO policy with an enforced 2 week minimum - Equity Package - Work / Home Office Stipend - Global Entry - 16 Week Paid Parental Leave - Monthly Health and Wellness Stipend Our Values: - Innovation: We are driven to break new ground. Every day presents an opportunity to challenge the status quo, think boldly, and deliver advanced solutions that transform the future of defense technology. - Integrity: We hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards, ensuring transparency, accountability, and trust in all our actions and partnerships. - Mission-Driven: We are focused on achieving impactful outcomes that align with our core mission—protecting lives through innovation. - Forward-Leaning: We continuously seek out new opportunities and remain at the forefront of technological advancements. We embrace change and anticipate the challenges of tomorrow with confidence and creativity. - Ownership of All Tasks: At HavocAI, no problem is too complex or too trivial. We believe that greatness comes from tackling the hardest challenges, but also in handling the smallest, sometimes thankless, tasks with the same level of commitment and care. - Servant Leadership: We lead by serving others, whether it’s supporting our employees, partners, or the broader community. Empowering those around us is key to achieving long-term success and making a lasting impact. HavocAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse workplace. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status. ## About HavocAI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: HavocAI builds collaborative autonomy software that enables a single human operator to supervise thousands of autonomous assets across sea, air, and land in contested environments. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: Providence, Rhode Island, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Paul Lwin (CEO) and Joe Turner (COO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Defense and Space Manufacturing, Autonomous Systems, Maritime Security - **Target customers**: U.S. Navy, Army, and allied defense forces; commercial maritime security operators - **Mission or purpose statement**: "Minimize human risk in the world's most unstable environments, removing humans from the dull, dirty, and dangerous." ## Products & Services - **Havoc C2**: An intuitive command-and-control interface that lets operators define intent and direct large numbers of autonomous assets across distributed systems, scaling complex multi-asset missions without proportional increases in manpower. - **Havoc Connect**: A resilient peer-to-peer overlay network for data exchange across DDIL (Disrupted, Disconnected, Intermittent, Limited) networks, enabling systems to exchange commands, telemetry, and mission data even when connectivity is intermittent or degraded. - **Havoc OS**: An operating system for autonomous systems at the edge, enabling heterogeneous platforms to carry out collaborative missions, adapt to changing conditions, and continue operating in DDIL environments. - **Havoc Insights**: An intelligence layer that fuses AI and analytics, ingesting real-time data streams from vehicles, sensors, and system services to surface insights, trends, and anomalies for mission-level decision support. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $197.2M across three rounds (Seed, two Series A tranches) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Scout Ventures, Trousdale Ventures, IQT (lead Series A), Azak (MOU for autonomous ground systems) - **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 221.3% year-over-year to 98 employees; acquired Mavrik in March 2026; over 25,000 hours of autonomous operations; 11 active job postings with quarterly growth of +10.0% ## Competitive Advantages - **Software-defined autonomy**: Havoc's platform is platform-agnostic, integrating with existing vehicles, sensors, and C2 networks without major redesigns, making it interoperable across sea, air, and land domains. - **Human-on-the-loop architecture**: Enables a single operator to supervise thousands of autonomous assets, dramatically reducing manpower requirements for complex multi-asset missions. - **DDIL resilience**: Havoc Connect creates a resilient peer-to-peer overlay network that maintains operations even when communications are disrupted, intermittent, or denied — a critical capability for contested military environments. - **Proven track record**: Over 25,000 hours of autonomous operations, validated through real-world exercises with U.S. Navy and Army stakeholders. ## Strategic Focus - **All-domain collaborative autonomy**: Scaling from maritime to air and land domains, enabling heterogeneous platforms to work together seamlessly. - **Fully adaptive maritime autonomy**: Building systems that can anticipate, collaborate, and make independent decisions in dynamic environments. - **International expansion**: Head of Europe appointed (Theodora Dell), indicating a push into allied defense markets. - **Ground systems expansion**: MOU with Azak to produce high mobility autonomous ground systems, diversifying beyond maritime. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven work**: Employees work on cutting-edge autonomy technology that directly reduces human risk in dangerous environments — "removing humans from the dull, dirty, and dangerous." - **Strong growth trajectory**: 221.3% headcount growth year-over-year, with $197.2M in total funding, indicating a well-capitalized, scaling organization. - **Comprehensive benefits**: 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision for employees and families; stock options; 16 weeks fully paid parental leave; unlimited PTO with a two-week enforced minimum; monthly wellness stipend; home office stipend; 401(k) program; Global Entry reimbursement. - **Work model**: Remote and hybrid options available, with corporate HQ, test, and production facilities in Providence, RI. Open roles also listed in Honolulu, HI and San Diego, CA. - **Engineering culture**: Deep technical challenges in autonomy, robotics, edge computing, and defense-grade software. Team includes talent from US Navy, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Anduril, Shield AI, and Lockheed Martin. ## Sources 1. [havocai.com](https://www.havocai.com/) 2. [havocai.com/careers](https://havocai.com/careers) 3. [havocai.com/about](https://havocai.com/about) 4. [linkedin.com/company/havocai](https://www.linkedin.com/company/havocai) 5. 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