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 operators, 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’ve opened a Detroit manufacturing hub and we field test weekly on our own 400-acre private range.

The Role and Your Impact:

We are seeking a skilled Perception Engineer to join our software team and work on end‑to‑end perception and sensor‑fusion stack. You will develop, train, and deploy vision and sensor based models; manage data pipelines; and enable real‑time detection and tracking for our laser‑based defense system. This role bridges data science, software engineering, and robotics to deliver reliable, high‑throughput perception performance on edge hardware.

What You'll Own:

Design, train, validate and fine-tune machine‑learning and deep‑learning models (e.g., YOLO, RT-DETR, CNNs) for object detection, classification, and segmentation.
Integrate and fuse data from multi‑modal sensors (RGB, thermal, LiDAR/ToF, IMU, encoders) to produce robust, real‑time Regions of Interest (ROIs).
Research, implement, and as-needed develop high and low-level image-processing techniques, such as deconvolution, low SNR detection, and motion-isolation techniques.
Collaborate with hardware teams to integrate and troubleshoot sensors (global‑shutter and rolling‑shutter cameras, thermal imagers, LiDAR/ToF modules, IMUs) over GigE Vision, USB3 Vision, CAN, SPI, and I²C protocols; develop and debug embedded firmware in C/C++ (or Rust) for microcontrollers (STM32, NXP, TI) and FPGAs using VHDL/Verilog within RTOS environments (FreeRTOS, Zephyr).
Build scalable data ingestion, labeling, augmentation, and storage pipelines (simulated and field data) ensuring 100k+ labeled frames accuracy.
Optimize inference frameworks for edge deployment (GPU/FPGA), achieving ≥500 Hz end‑to‑end throughput.
Develop dashboards and telemetry for drift analysis, hardware health monitoring, performance metrics, and automated retraining triggers.
Author clear technical docs; mentor junior engineers on best practices in vision, sensor‑fusion, and embedded firmware engineering.
Determines development needs by directly analyzing technical and physical limitations of our goals.

What We're Looking For:

2–6+ years in computer vision, sensor fusion, or robotics perception roles
Strong C++ with deep ML engineering experience
Hands‑on with ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) and real‑time inference engines (TensorRT, OpenVINO)
Computer vision, tracking, and detection in real-time, real-world conditions
Familiarity with ROS2, Docker, and CI/CD for ML pipelines
Experience with multi‑sensor calibration and data synchronization

Where you probably come from:Perception roles at defense companies, autonomous vehicle programs, robotics platforms, or aerospace programs that deploy perception against real targets.

We want to talk if: You've shipped a perception system that ran on real hardware against real targets. You know the gap between paper SOTA and what survives field conditions.

Not a fit if: Your background is research only without deployment, or your CV experience is offline batch processing only.

Nice to Haves:

Edge‑AI optimization (quantization, pruning)
Experience with FPGA or embedded GPU platforms
Background in defense or safety‑critical systems
Familiarity with cybersecurity guidelines and secure coding practices

Education:

BS, MS, or PhD in CS, EE, Robotics, or equivalent. Track record matters more than degree.

How You Operate:

Extreme bias for action. You ship working perception on real hardware, not slideware
You debug from first principles, not intuition alone
Comfortable with ambiguity and fast iteration in a startup environment
Clear communicator across software, hardware, and operator-facing surfaces
Self directed. You identify what needs to happen next and do it without being told

Why Join Aurelius Systems?

Build more in 1 month than most engineers build in 1 year. We field test weekly. Your work goes downrange, not into a filing cabinet.
Career velocity is real. At ~10 engineers, there are no layers between you and impact.
Work on a problem that actually matters. Small cheap drones are changing warfare. Our laser systems are the asymmetric answer — infinite magazine, near zero cost per shot, scalable to every base, border, facility, and truck.
Join the densest defense startup ecosystem in the country. California is where the next generation of defense companies are being built.

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 + equity
United Health Care medical, dental, and vision coverage
Flexible 18 days PTO + 5 sick days
Travel to field test events and range days
Covered daily lunches and office snacks + drinks
E-bike / 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 the company

Aurelius Systems builds AI-powered directed-energy laser systems for defense to detect, track, and defeat small drones. Its Archimedes Laser Sentinel is a lightweight, modular autonomous turret for mobile point defense that integrates sensing, processing, and laser engagement. The company differentiates itself with autonomous modular hardware, AI-driven tracking, and a low per-engagement cost compared with missile countermeasures, supported by partnerships for vehicle-mounted deployments. Its goal is to scale Archimedes, increase manufacturing, and expand its market reach through strategic funding and defense collaborations.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$50M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2024

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See people who can refer or advise you

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

August 2026's $40 million Series A funds manufacturing, vertical integration, and market expansion.
July 2026 Rheinmetall partnership opens robotic combat vehicle deployments and procurement channels.
September 2026 fiber-laser line diversifies revenue and reduces supply-chain dependence.

What critics are saying

Defense budgets and procurement cycles still decide whether Archimedes reaches serial production.
RTX, Lockheed Martin, and Anduril can outspend Aurelius on counter-drone sales.
If Pentagon pilots stall, Aurelius becomes a capital-intensive laser manufacturer without scale.

What makes Aurelius Systems unique

Archimedes pairs AI targeting with directed-energy, delivering near-zero-cost drone kills.
Aurelius won demonstrations at T-REX 26-2, Operation Jailbreak, and Pentagon testing.
American Rheinmetall integration makes Archimedes vehicle-mountable for mobile point defense.

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Benefits

Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Sick Leave
Meal Benefits
Commuter Benefits
Company Equity

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

23%

1 year growth

23%

2 year growth

44%

The Defence Blog

Oct 13th, 2026

Startup's laser turns Rheinmetall autonomous cargo vehicle into drone killer.

Startup's laser turns Rheinmetall autonomous cargo vehicle into drone killer. Oct 15, 2026 Modified date: Oct 15, 2026 Key Points * Aurelius Systems is displaying its Archimedes autonomous counter-drone laser on an American Rheinmetall unmanned ground vehicle at AUSA 2026. * The startup raised $40 million in August and says Archimedes can defeat small and medium drones at more than a kilometer. Aurelius Systems is showing its Archimedes autonomous laser weapon mounted on an American Rheinmetall unmanned ground vehicle at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in Washington this week, where the two companies are pitching mobile laser defense against small drones to U.S. Army buyers. The San Francisco-based startup said in a post on X that Archimedes is on display in motion at the Rheinmetall booth through the end of the show, as part of the companies' partnership to bring counter-drone lasers to uncrewed combat vehicles. Archimedes is a lightweight turret that combines a high-power laser with machine vision and radar, and Aurelius says it can find, track and burn down a drone on its own without an operator initiating each engagement. The system is aimed at Group 1 and Group 2 drones, the small and medium-size types that include commercial quadcopters and many of the one-way attack drones used in Ukraine, and the company says it can defeat them at more than a kilometer. - ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW - Discover more Military technology updates Air Force news Naval forces news The two firms announced their partnership in July. According to Tectonic, Archimedes is being integrated first on the Ox, the unmanned ground vehicle American Rheinmetall has entered in the U.S. Army's Ground Optionally Autonomous Transport competition for a vehicle that hauls supplies and equipment over rough terrain. With a laser on board, a cargo-carrying vehicle can defend itself against drones during resupply runs, a role Rheinmetall has described as protection for autonomous logistics missions. Aurelius first showed the laser on a Rheinmetall vehicle at the Reindustrialize 2026 conference in Detroit in June, in a display built with American Rheinmetall and electric vehicle startup Harbinger. In August, the company raised a $40 million Series A round co-led by Draper Associates and KAS Venture Partners to scale up Archimedes production. During the Pentagon's T-REX 26-2 experimentation event, the laser downed more than 20 quadcopters and more than five drones supplied by the U.S. Army, Tectonic reported, and at the U.S. Army's Operation Jailbreak exercise at Fort Carson, Colorado, Aurelius linked Archimedes with Anduril's Lattice software and the Army's Forward Area Air Defense command and control system, which ties sensors and shooters together. Lasers appeal to militaries because each shot costs only the electricity needed to fire it, compared with tens of thousands of dollars or more for a missile interceptor, and Aurelius says it builds Archimedes largely from commercially available parts to keep the system's own price down. - ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW - Discover more Military news subscription Global security news Defense news analysis Corrections and feedback If you identify a factual or grammatical error in this article, please report it using its corrections form. Executive Editor Support the reporting you read Your contribution helps Defence Blog produce independent defense news and analysis.

Yahoo Finance

Sep 29th, 2026

Aurelius Systems hires defence veteran Brice Cooper as chief strategy officer

Aurelius Systems has appointed Brice Cooper as chief strategy officer. The San Francisco company announced the hire on September 29, 2026. Cooper will lead corporate strategy, business development, government relations, and growth initiatives as Aurelius scales its technology and operations at home and abroad. He brings more than 25 years of experience in defence technology, military acquisition, congressional affairs, and special operations. "Brice's extensive leadership experience and deep understanding of the defense industry will be critical as we scale the production of Archimedes," said Michael LaFramboise, chief executive officer and founder. Aurelius builds AI-powered, robotic directed-energy systems that detect, track, and neutralise autonomous aerial threats.

ORF

Sep 7th, 2026

Volkswagen wants to sell the plant in Osnabrück.

Volkswagen wants to sell the plant in Osnabrück. Online as of today, 11:26 a.m. Volkswagen wants to sell the plant in Osnabrück, Germany, to financial investor Aurelius and the state of Lower Saxony. The site is to be gradually developed into a competence center for security and defense solutions, as the automaker announced today. The details of the deal are to be negotiated in the coming months, the parties further explained. Lower Saxony's Minister-President Olaf Lies (SPD) said that with the agreement, his government was opening a real industrial opportunity for Osnabrück. The site had a lot of experience with demanding tasks, and at the same time the security situation had fundamentally changed. Volkswagen is struggling with declining demand and competition from Chinese manufacturers. The supervisory board recently gave the green light for the elimination of a further 50,000 jobs worldwide - in addition to the already agreed group-wide savings of 50,000 positions in Germany by 2030. Further plant closures were also on the table.

Frontrun

Aug 14th, 2026

10 raises this week, flagged 120 days early.

10 raises this week, flagged 120 days early. tl;dr: ten early-stage rounds were announced this week, from a $40M Series A down to a $2.3M pre-seed. frontrun had flagged all ten before the news broke, with an average lead time of 120 days. the longest was 179 days. and this week the graph did something better than being early: lightspeed followed a company seven days before announcing it co-led the round. Alloy Robotics: $8M seed, led by Square Peg. Alloy Robotics (@alloyrobotics) raised $8M led by Square Peg, with pre-seed backers Blackbird, Airtree and Skip Capital participating, plus angels from OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and Waymo. AI agents that debug robot fleets: logs, telemetry, video and sensor data in, root cause of the failure out. founder: Joe Harris, who scaled Eucalyptus to a $1B acquisition as chief commercial officer before starting Alloy in Sydney · flagged february 13. 179 days. Silicon Data: $30.5M Series A, led by Valor Atreides AI Fund. Silicon Data (@Silicon_Data) raised $30.5M led by the Valor Atreides AI Fund, with CME Group, DRW, F-Prime, Samsung Next, VanEck, Jump and Wintermute. independent pricing indexes and benchmarks for GPU compute, including the reference prices for CME's planned GPU futures market. founder: Carmen Li (CEO, ex-Bloomberg, ex-DRW) · flagged february 28. 165 days. this one is the cleanest acceleration curve Frontrun has published. for months after the flag the account picked up one new tracked investor a month. in may it was 5, including wintermute, who ended up in the round. in july, 14. then on august 6, ten tracked investors followed in a single day, six days before the announcement. Aurelius Systems: $40M Series A, co-led by Draper Associates. Aurelius Systems (@aureliuslasers) raised $40M co-led by Draper Associates and KAS Venture Partners. autonomous laser turrets that detect, track and shoot down drones. Frontrun covered the round in last week's recap; one detail surfaced since: general catalyst followed the account on june 14, seven weeks before appearing among the round's backers. founders: Michael LaFramboise (CEO, ex-Coherent) and John Marmaduke (CTO, ex-Ford) · flagged february 26. 159 days. naïve: $28.5M Series A, led by Nexus. naïve (@usenaive) raised $28.5M led by Nexus Venture Partners. the operating stack AI agents need to run entire businesses. covered in full in last week's recap. founders: Sean Dorje (CEO) and Dennis Zax (CTO), both Berkeley dropouts who sold their first startup as teenagers · flagged march 19, at 1,437 followers. 140 days. Attestable: $20M seed, led by Altimeter and TLV Partners. Attestable (@attestablecom) raised $20M co-led by Altimeter and TLV Partners, with angels including Wiz's Assaf Rappaport. zero-knowledge proofs that let companies verify what an AI model actually computed, without exposing the model or the data. founders: Yogev Bar-On (CEO, ex-RAND, founding team at Fordefi) and Shahar Papini (CTO, six years at StarkWare, then SSI) · flagged april 3. 130 days. River Markets: $8.5M seed, led by Haun Ventures. River Markets (@river_markets) raised $8.5M led by Haun Ventures, with Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, Qube and Cherry Ventures. prime brokerage for prediction markets: unified execution, data and risk across kalshi, polymarket and the rest. founders: Oscar Levy (CEO, ex-BlackRock quant) and Antonin Parrot (CTO, ex-HFT), YC P26 · flagged april 14. 119 days. Gravity: $30.5M Series A, co-led by Lightspeed. Gravity (@trygravityai) raised $30.5M co-led by Lightspeed and Committed Capital. an ad exchange that places text-based ads inside AI chatbots and assistants: a DSP for advertisers, an SSP for AI apps, and the exchange between them. founders: Zach Oldham (CEO) and Leo Martinez (CTO), both ex-Flax Labs · flagged may 6, at 36 followers. 92 days. Lemma: $2.3M pre-seed, backed by Matrix. Lemma (@uselemma_ai) raised $2.3M backed by Matrix, Y Combinator and Liquid 2, with angels from OpenAI, xAI and Meta. production monitoring for AI agents that catches silent failures, the runs that looked like they worked but did not, and pushes proposed fixes back to the codebase. founders: Jerry Zhang and Cole Gawin, USC dropouts, YC F25 · flagged june 9, at 107 followers. 65 days. Primitive Labs: pre-seed, led by a16z Speedrun. Primitive Labs (@primitivelabsai) raised a pre-seed led by a16z Speedrun, with Olive Tree Capital, Cloverfield Fund and Josh Constine's Unexpected Investments. AI agents that simulate a company's real customers, so product teams can test features and messaging before shipping. deal trackers list the round at $785K; the company has not disclosed the amount. founders: Rohit Talluri (CEO), Jean Farmer (CTO) and Gabriel Fong (COO), all ex-AWS and Amazon AGI · flagged july 6, the day before geekwire covered their launch. Baselayer: $20M Series A, led by Koro Capital and M13. Baselayer (@baselayerhq) raised $20M co-led by Koro Capital and M13. AI-powered business verification and fraud checks, used by 2,200+ financial institutions. founders: Jonathan Awad (CEO, ex-JPMorgan) and Timothy Hyde (CTO, ex-Snap) · flagged july 6. 28 days. 120 days is the window where the round is still forming. at 165 days silicon data was getting one new investor follow a month. at 92 days gravity had 36 followers. by the time ten investors pile onto an account in a single day, the announcement is six days out and the allocation conversation is over. the sectors this week are a defense laser company, GPU price benchmarks, prediction-market brokerage, chatbot ads and business verification. the signal is not sector-specific because attention is not sector-specific. frontrun tracks the follow graphs of 2,000+ venture investors on X. when several converge on the same small or unlaunched account, that convergence is recorded with a date and the follower count at that moment. alongside it the pipeline runs accelerator-batch monitoring, launch and fundraise detection, and a founder resolution layer. the date is stamped when the signal fires, before any press release exists. that is what makes a lead time provable instead of a story told in hindsight. and increasingly the graph names the buyer too: lightspeed on gravity, general catalyst on aurelius, wintermute on silicon data, each followed before the round they joined was public. every round here joins the receipt ledger with its flag date and source link. these ten already raised. the useful list is the one where the round has not happened yet. see the signal this article is built on frontrun tracks the follow graphs of 2,000+ venture investors and flags companies months before rounds are announced. companies and founders surfaced on frontrun. curated, every week.

Morningstar

Aug 5th, 2026

Aurelius Systems raises $40M Series A to scale AI-powered counter-drone defence platform

Aurelius Systems has closed a $40 million Series A funding round co-led by Draper Associates and KAS Venture Partners, with participation from General Catalyst, Hanwha Defense USA, and others. The San Francisco-based company develops AI-powered counter-drone systems using autonomous directed-energy technology. The funding will advance Aurelius's flagship platform, Archimedes, and support vertical integration to reduce supply chain risks and accelerate delivery. The company will also expand production capacity and broaden its platform offerings into new markets. Aurelius recently completed integration partnerships with American Rheinmetall and validated its systems at military operations. The company currently has 19 employees and expects to grow to over 40 by the end of 2026.

Aurelius Systems

Perception Engineer

About the job