Founding Frontend Engineer

FOUNDING FRONTEND ENGINEER — PLUTON

Part-time to start · Remote · Pre-seed · Equity Compensation

US WORK AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED — CITIZEN OR GREEN CARD ONLY, NO VISA SPONSORSHIP

ABOUT PLUTON:

Pluton Resource Intelligence is building a closed-loop probabilistic command system for mineral exploration. Four components, one architecture:

•
NOUS
— the probabilistic belief engine. Fuses heterogeneous geological evidence into prospectivity scores under uncertainty.

•
CARTA
— the decision engine. Translates beliefs into targets, deployment plans, and decisions humans can act on.

•
GAIA
— the simulation and mission planning environment.

•
ROBOTS
— adaptive evidence acquisition. EAGLE aerial systems and BEAR ground systems that close the loop between belief and the field.

We are pre-incorporation, operating off a signed pilot agreement with an active mining client in Saudi Arabia, with a second institutional package currently under chairman review. We are building toward pre-seed at end of year.

MISSION:

Critical minerals are civilizational infrastructure. The world needs vastly more lithium, copper, nickel, rare earths, and uranium than the current exploration industry knows how to find — not because the deposits aren’t there, but because the industry has never learned how to structure belief and allocate capital under deep uncertainty.

Exploration is not a data problem. It is a decision problem. Companies sit on enormous geological datasets they cannot act on, drilling decisions get made on intuition dressed up as analysis, and capital flows toward projects with the best stories rather than the strongest evidence.

We are building the underlying decision substrate for the next generation of resource discovery. Belief structured by evidence. Decisions traceable to their inputs. Closed loops between data, judgment, and the field.

THE ROLE:

CARTA is a live geospatial intelligence platform. It takes NOUS’s output — prospectivity scores across millions of spatial targets — and gives exploration teams a complete decision interface. From regional hotspot identification at national scale, down to 250m sub-cell targeting, 3D terrain visualization, and autonomous deployment planning.

We need a frontend engineer to own CARTA. You’ll be the dedicated frontend hire, working directly with the founders, shipping real features to real clients.

This is technically deep work. You’ll be rendering 3D terrain from real elevation and satellite data, serving vector tiles at scale across millions of features, building conversational AI interfaces on top of live geological databases, and owning the connection between NOUS’s ML outputs and the humans who act on them.

WHAT YOU’LL BUILD:

•
The CARTA map interface
— built on TerriaMap (React/TypeScript/Cesium) with MVT vector tile rendering across millions of NOUS-scored grid cells

•
3D terrain viewer
— Cesium-based rendering of real DEM terrain with satellite imagery, animated drone survey paths, and sensor data overlays

•
Conversational AI layer
— cell-level chat interface that lets users query NOUS directly and get data-driven exploration recommendations

•
The drill-down workflow
— national hotspot view → regional grid → 250m sub-cell targeting → 3D deployment planning

•
Aerial-to-ground robotics UI
— connecting NOUS recommendations to our autonomous deployment pipeline

• The NOUS data pipeline — owning the flow from raw field data (hyperspectral, geochemical, proprietary sensor outputs) into the database and through to NOUS’s ML models

•
Performance at scale
— MVT tile caching, viewport-based loading, zoom-level filtering, sub-second tile response times across global datasets

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

Must have:

• US citizen or green card holder (we cannot sponsor visas)

• 3+ years frontend engineering

• Strong React and TypeScript

• Experience with at least one mapping library — Cesium, Mapbox GL JS, Leaflet, or deck.gl

• Comfortable with GeoJSON, vector tiles, and spatial data concepts

• Sharp eye for UI/UX — you ship things that feel good to use

• Able to own a feature end-to-end without hand-holding

Strong advantage:

• Cesium.js or WebGL experience

• PostGIS or spatial database experience

• Familiarity with ML pipelines or data engineering

• Data visualization background — D3, deck.gl, or similar

• Interest in geoscience, mining, or resource exploration

HOW THIS WORKS — COMPENSATION & COMMITMENT:

We are hiring cofounders, not employees. This is a founding engineer role with founding-engineer compensation:

•
Meaningful equity from day one.
You join at incorporation with real ownership.

•
No salary at the start.
You begin part-time alongside whatever you’re doing now, helping us get to pre-seed.

•
Cash compensation begins as revenue does.
We have signed pilot agreements with active mining clients; as steady revenue comes in, we start paying.

•
Full-time competitive salary post-pre-seed.
Once we close (targeting EOY 2026), you transition to full-time on market salary while keeping your equity.

If that structure isn’t the shape of opportunity you’re looking for, this isn’t the role. If it is — if you want to own something instead of being paid to maintain something — read on.

WHAT YOU’RE WALKING INTO:

CARTA works. You’re not starting from scratch. You will take over a functioning platform and make it production-grade, scalable, and client-ready. Near-term priorities:

• Polish the 3D terrain viewer to production quality

• Deploy to AWS with auth for team and client access

• Own the data pipeline as we expand regions, commodities, and proprietary data sources

• Scale CARTA globally as NOUS covers new territories

WHAT WE OFFER:

• Founding equity — meaningful stake at incorporation

• Remote-first

• Direct access to founders. No layers. No bureaucracy.

• A path to full-time salary as we close pre-seed

• Work that is genuinely hard and genuinely important

HOW TO APPLY:

Apply directly through LinkedIn with your resume plus:

• A brief intro — who you are and why this role interests you

• Links to work you’re proud of — GitHub, live projects, or demos

• One example of a complex mapping, data visualization, or 3D web project you’ve built

If this listing has already closed by the time you find it, apply through our careers page:
https://www.pluton.earth/careers

We respond to every application. No recruiters please.