Tech Lead

The Opportunity

MARESTRA is a high-profile, stealth-stage defense tech venture redefining the boundaries of maritime operational capabilities. Backed by a top-tier Israeli and US Venture Capital firms, we are building an elite foundation at the ground floor.

This is a rare opportunity to join a promising startup at a very early stage in the emerging defense tech domain.

What We Aim to Achieve

MARESTRA is pioneering an innovative, platform-agnostic cognitive orchestration layer to deliver maritime security as a service, built upon networks of uncrewed autonomous surface vessels.

We are building a multi-tenant, cloud-native but edge-resilient "Mission Brain" that leverages advanced multi-agent orchestration frameworks, semantic guardrails, and sandboxed dynamic execution fields.

Our system translates complex operational logic and real-time parameters into deterministic, auditable software constraints at sea. By decoupling mission-critical cognitive intelligence from legacy hardware, we are establishing an entirely new paradigm of autonomous coordination, virtualized supervision, and forensic accountability.

Role Overview & Expectations

As our Backend, Core Infrastructure & AI DLC Tech Lead, you will be a "Player-Coach" operating on a true blank canvas. You will be responsible for designing and executing the secure, highly scalable architectural substrate of our platform.

Crucially, you will architect and lead our AI Development Life Cycle (DLC) infrastructure. Instead of just managing human workflows, you will design the developer platform, automated evaluation loops, and secure runtime sandboxes that allow AI coding agents to autonomously and safely develop, test, and integrate production code. You will partner across technical boundaries to embed automated security and strict governance directly into our autonomous engineering pipelines.

We are looking for a highly autonomous, systems-thinking technologist driven by a founding-stage challenge. You thrive with zero infrastructure, possess deep intellectual curiosity, and have a passion for enforcing architectural elegance and absolute data isolation within highly regulated domains.

Requirements

• Experience: 5+ years of experience as a Backend Architect, Core Tech Lead, or Principal Engineer building complex distributed systems.
• Backend Software Engineering: Expert-level proficiency in building robust, high-performance backends and complex networking layers using Go, Python, or Rust.
• DevInfra & Platform Engineering: Proven experience or a strong, structured vision for building modern developer infrastructure, air-gapped DevOps, and advanced CI/CD pipelines.
• AI DLC: Strong theoretical understanding or practical experience managing the development lifecycle of AI-generated code (including sandboxing, prompt-firewalls, or automated evaluation loops).
• Secure Architectures: Experience designing multi-tenant software platforms for on-premise, air-gapped, or highly secure/regulated industries (e.g., cyber, defense, or fintech).

Preferred Qualifications (Advantage)

• Hands-on experience configuring secure runtime environments or container runtimes for unsafe workloads (e.g., gVisor, Firecracker, or secure Linux namespaces).
• Deep understanding of advanced AI patterns, including multi-agent orchestration frameworks (e.g., CrewAI, AutoGen, LangChain) and mitigation techniques for agent drift or prompt injection.
• Familiarity with standard messaging protocols and modular software interfacing for autonomous systems or robotics.
• Prior experience working in the defense tech ecosystem or building maritime Command & Control (C2) frameworks.
• Advanced degree (M.Sc./Ph.D.) in Computer Science, AI, or Robotics.