9 Mothers jobs, judged for you, free

What they do

9 Mothers builds AI counter-drone systems for military use. Its first product, Edda, is a point defense turret that stops fast FPV attack drones at 10 to 100 meters. It finds drones by their sound, with no radio emission, and aims with an in-house visual model. The US Government and its prime contractors buy its systems.

What they value

• Bias to ship: hardware in the field beats hardware in a deck.
• Short loops: test on the range and change what the data shows.
• Operators are users: mass, setup time, and human factors are specs.
• Built to be afforded: cost per shot and manufacturability are design limits.
• Own a system: the people who do the work own the spec.
• Build in person: the team works together on the bench in Austin.

Where they hire

All nine open roles are on site in Austin, Texas. The company says it has no remote work. Postings offer relocation help to people outside Austin. Six postings require US citizenship and a background check. The radar role handles ITAR export-controlled data. Many postings count a security clearance, or the right to get one, as a plus.

Teams and roles

Y Combinator backs 9 Mothers, in its P26 batch. The company lists four products: Edda, the Vor acoustic sensor, the Atla shotgun system, and Gleipnir. The board lists nine roles in four teams.

• Hardware engineering: a senior mechatronics engineer who owns every motor, gearbox, and actuator, a senior optomechanical engineer, a senior electrical harness engineer, a CNC machinist, and a shipping and receiving clerk.
• Software engineering: a radar engineer who integrates and tunes radars from many vendors, and a robotics software engineer who writes the control systems of the turret.
• Perception: a perception engineer who owns the computer vision and machine learning that detect and track drones on NVIDIA Jetson hardware.
• Executive: a chief of staff who works as the operational right hand of the CEO.

Every posting gives a pay range. All but the clerk role include equity.

What they look for

Engineering postings ask for many years of hands-on work on shipped hardware: five or more for radar, six or more for perception, eight or more for harnesses, and ten or more for mechatronics and optomechanics. Software roles ask for C++ or Rust, and Python. Many roles want experience with rugged hardware for harsh field use, such as MIL-STD-810 shock and vibration tests. Several postings count a hobby of building robots as a plus.

The machinist role asks for about five years in a machine shop and CAM programming in Mastercam. The clerk role needs no prior experience. The chief of staff role asks for four to eight or more years in defense or hardware operations, program management, or consulting.

The perception posting describes the interview. It is a recruiter call, a 45-minute video interview, and an onsite interview of about six hours. 9 Mothers flies in people who do not live in Austin. AI tools are not allowed in the first round.