Foundation Industries
We supply hard tech companies with critical components.
Founding Machinist
About the role
About Us
Foundation Industries is building the supply base for the next generation of hardware companies. Our customers are building rockets, robots, and technologies that don't yet exist, and they move faster than any traditional contract manufacturer can keep up with. We exist to change that. We are purpose-built for frontier hardware companies, and we're growing the team that will make it possible.
We are based in Redwood City, California.
About the Role
We're hiring a Founding Machinist.
US manufacturing is plagued by the death of tribal knowledge. We're building the system that changes that, one that captures process knowledge, encodes it, and gives operators leverage that doesn't exist anywhere today. That system is being built from scratch, and the person we hire will have a direct hand in designing it.
In the near term, making difficult parts for customers, building things that have never been built before. In parallel: closing the feedback loop between what happens at the machine and how we develop our capabilities. You'll be the one identifying where the process breaks down and where improvements compound. Over time, you'll help lead our technical direction, equipment, process architecture, and the systems we build to scale precision manufacturing without increasing headcount in proportion.
This is a ground-floor role with real ownership. The decisions made in the next two years will define what the Foundation becomes.
What You'll Do
- Program and run complex 5-axis work across a range of materials, mainly aluminum and hardened steels
- Own setups end to end: CAM, fixturing, first article, and inspection
- Work alongside our engineers to translate what you see on the production floor into process improvements, tooling decisions, and system design
- Make the calls on equipment, workholding, and process architecture as we grow
- Build the documentation, workflows, and institutional knowledge that lets the next person we hire hit the ground running at a level they couldn't reach anywhere else
What You'll Need
- 5+ years running CNC, with 5-axis experience
- Ability to write your own CAM programs; Fusion, Mastercam, Solidcam; we care about the output, not the software
- Experience holding tight tolerances on complex geometry
- Comfort reading GD&T drawings
- Familiarity with inspection CMM
Bonus Points For
- Worked at a venture-backed hardware startup (aerospace, robotics, defense tech)
- Experience using inspection and metrology tools (CMM, optical comparators, Renishaw probing)
- Experience with exotic or difficult-to-machine materials (Inconel, titanium, hardened steels)
Compensation: $100,000–$175,000 salary + 1–1.5% equity. Real ownership in what we're building, we want you here for the long haul
About Foundation Industries
America once turned breakthroughs into abundant products with unmatched speed. Our edge wasn’t just invention; it was the ability to prototype, iterate, and scale production faster than anyone else.
Over time, we kept inventing but lost production velocity. High-volume manufacturing moved offshore, and low-volume, high-mix production became slow, fragmented, and burdened by overhead, quoting, programming, scheduling, and coordination. For decades, fixing this wasn’t economical. The indirect workaround costs more than the production itself.
That constraint is no longer.
New tools now automate the cognitive layers that once slowed everything down, collapsing weeks into days and turning overhead into code.
For the first time in decades, fast, flexible domestic production can be economically superior. We’re rebuilding America’s productive edge by accelerating high-tech, low-volume, high-mix manufacturing, helping hard-tech teams prototype faster, launch sooner, and build more here.
If you want to restore American productive power and ship real hardware, reach out.
