ModalAI, Robotic Perception

Come Build With Us

ModalAI is 100% employee owned, growing fast, and adding three people to the Product team: a Senior Product Manager and a Product Solutions Engineer in Boston, and a Senior Product Solutions Engineer in North Carolina. Applications open . The form starts with five questions about how you think and what you chase down. We read those before we read your resume.

One email on , nothing else. Applications close .

ModalAI is 100% employee owned, growing fast, and adding three people to the Product team: a Senior Product Manager and a Product Solutions Engineer in Boston, and a Senior Product Solutions Engineer in North Carolina. The form starts with five questions about how you think and what you chase down. We read those before we read your resume. Plan on about half an hour; you can leave and come back.

Start the application Read the roles first

Applications close .

Applications for these three roles closed on . Thanks to everyone who wrote in. We're reading every one, answers first, and you'll hear back from us by email either way.

Other openings at ModalAI

Three seats. One window. I read every answer before I look at a resume, and everyone who applies hears back from us by .
Matthew Borowski, Director of Product

  1. Applications open
  2. Applications close
  3. Everyone hears back
  4. Interviews
  5. Offers
  • Blue UAS cleared aircraft and framework components
  • NDAA compliant autopilots and autonomy software
  • Designed and assembled in the USA
  • 100% employee owned

The roles

All three are on the Product team. The Senior Product Manager and the Product Solutions Engineer work from Boston, MA. The Senior Product Solutions Engineer is based near Southern Pines or Raleigh, North Carolina, close to many of our federal customers, and works remotely from the Boston team. Full descriptions below.

Senior Product Manager

Boston, MA

U.S. citizenship required.

You decide what VOXL, our reference drones and the FPV line should do next, and you make the case for it to engineering, to customers and to the rest of the company. You'll spend real time with the hardware and the people who fly it. You are the source of truth.

Senior Product Solutions Engineer

Southern Pines / Raleigh, NC

U.S. citizenship required.

Our products are all over the world, in the hands of the best customers on earth: warfighters and federal officials who rely on them in intense situations. You make sure they succeed, whether they're running the newest features on the latest version or a legacy product, through the whole life of what we ship. And you work closely with engineering so the next thing we build is shaped by what you see in the field.

Product Solutions Engineer

Boston, MA

U.S. citizenship required.

You love robotics, you love embedded systems, you love adventure. You get customers flying on VOXL, figure out what's breaking when it breaks, and write down what you learned so the next person doesn't have to. Good for someone who learns fast and likes being near the hardware, in any environment the mission requires.

How applying works here

Most job applications ask for a resume and then, maybe, a cover letter nobody reads. We've flipped it.

The form starts with five questions, 150 words each. None of them ask where you went to school or how many years you've done something. They're meant to show us how you think, what you chase down on your own, and what you do when something's broken or half-built. We read those first and they carry the most weight.

You'll still attach a resume. It's required, it just comes at the end, and we use it to check details rather than to decide.

If you want to go further, there's an optional one-page product brief at the end: a product you'd build, improve, or can't stop thinking about. It doesn't have to be a drone. The people who send one tend to be the ones we end up talking to.

The questions are listed here so you can sit with them before the form opens. There are no right answers; we're reading for how you think, and we'll talk through your answers in the first conversation. We read everything after the window closes, so there's no advantage to being first; take the time to get it right.

The Product team's job is to get our newest robotics capabilities into equipment that has to perform, and to make sure the software bends to the mission, never the other way around. That work isn't glamorous and it isn't fast. It's firmware, voltage drops, flight-only edge cases, and code nobody will see that everything depends on, built for people you'll never meet whose lives may depend on it.

I'm hiring this way because a resume is a highlight reel, and what I need to know is how you show up when there's no applause. So tell us what you chase down on your own, what you did the last time something was broken, and what you'd push on here. Don't show off. Show up.

Matthew Borowski, Director of Product

The five questions

  1. What's the last thing you went down a rabbit hole on? A product, a technology, a problem, anything. What pulled you in, and where did you end up?
  2. It's two years from now and you're telling a friend about the best work you've done since today. What is it, and what did you have to learn to get there?
  3. Tell us about a time you were handed something half-finished, badly specified or broken, and had to make it work. What did you do first, and what did you end up owning?
  4. You've looked at what ModalAI makes. What would you change, question or push on? Be specific; we'd rather hear a real opinion than a compliment.
  5. One for the role you pick. Senior Product Manager: A customer wants something, engineering says it costs a quarter, and sales says the deal depends on it. Walk us through how you'd spend the next week, and what you'd be willing to be wrong about. Senior Product Solutions Engineer: It's 0430. A Signal message comes in from a customer you've met once, somewhere you can't get to: "Aircraft won't arm. Flew fine yesterday. We go at 0700." That's everything you have. Walk us through the next two hours. Product Solutions Engineer: Tell us about the last time the documentation was wrong or missing and you figured it out anyway. How did you go about it, and what did you leave behind for the next person?

What you get, honestly

We are not going to win a bidding war on salary, and we'd rather say that here than in a third interview. What we can offer is harder to find.

You'll own part of the company you're building. You'll work on products that are already in the field with warfighters and federal officials, not on a pitch deck for a product that might exist. And you'll join a team that's growing fast enough that scope finds you before you go looking for it.

Things we say no to:

  • Features we can't flight test.
  • Demos that get ahead of the product.
  • Roadmap promises made to win a meeting.
  • Marketing budget that should have been engineering budget.
100% employee owned

Every full-time employee owns a piece of ModalAI through stock options that vest and grow over time. Our valuation is built on substance, not hype: when the company does well, it's because something we built is working in the field, and you'll own part of that.

Growing fast

We're part of major federal programs with customers who rely on us daily, and we've doubled year over year, consistently. We're just getting started. The question isn't whether you can keep up. It's whether you can help us get ahead.

The best products, in the hands of the best customers

Our sUAS products go from concept to release to operation in weeks or months, not years. The VOXL SDK is why: it lets the hardware iterate fast without breaking what customers already fly. You'll know you're at ModalAI when, even as the product specialist, a release surprises you, and a few weeks later it's having an impact on a mission. Bringing the magic of robotics to reality. That's what our products do.

East Coast operations

ModalAI is headquartered in San Diego. Boston is our second headquarters and the base for our East Coast operations: the Product team, and much of our work with federal technology customers. Over the next few years we plan to grow north from Boston, along the North Shore and up to the New Hampshire Seacoast.

The Senior Product Manager and Product Solutions Engineer roles are in Boston, MA. For those, we're looking for people who want to be in the area, not people who'll put up with it. If you already live around here, or you've been looking for a reason to, say so in your application.

The Senior Product Solutions Engineer role is based near Southern Pines or Raleigh, North Carolina, close to many of our federal customers, and works remotely from the Boston team.

  • San Diego, CAHeadquarters
  • Boston, MAHeadquarters. East Coast operations, Product team
  • Southern Pines / Raleigh, NCSenior Product Solutions Engineer

Apply

Five steps: role, about you, the questions, your resume (plus an optional one-page brief), then review. Plan on about half an hour. Answers save in this browser as you go; files have to be re-attached if you refresh. If you need an accommodation to apply, email .

  1. Role
  2. About you
  3. Questions
  4. Uploads
  5. Review

Which role?

Pick one. If you're torn, pick the one you'd rather talk about for an hour. You'll get one role-specific question in step 3.

Role
Pick a role to continue.

About you

Enough to reach you and to know where you are. The next step is the part we read first.

We need your name.
That doesn't look like an email address.
That doesn't look like a phone number.
City and state, or city and country. Tell us where you're based.
Eligibility These roles require U.S. citizenship.
These roles require U.S. citizenship. Tick the box to continue.
Where would you work from? The Senior Product Manager and Product Solutions Engineer roles are in Boston, MA. The Senior Product Solutions Engineer role is based near Southern Pines or Raleigh, NC.
Pick the one that fits.

The questions

Five questions, 150 words each. There are no right answers; we're reading for how you think. Write the way you'd talk.

0 / 150 words This one needs an answer.
0 / 150 words This one needs an answer.
0 / 150 words This one needs an answer.
0 / 150 words This one needs an answer.
0 / 150 words This one needs an answer.

Uploads

A resume is required. We use it to follow up on what you wrote, not to decide.

PDF or Word document, up to 10 MB.
Attach your resume as a PDF or DOCX, 10 MB or smaller.

Optional: a one-page product brief

If you want to stand out, this is the place. About a page on a product you'd build, improve, or can't stop thinking about. Doesn't have to be a drone. Sketches, bullets and strong opinions are all fine. Paste it below or attach a file. Applicants without a brief are read exactly the same way; this is extra, not expected.

0 / 600 words The pasted brief is over 600 words. Trim it, or attach it as a file instead.

or

PDF, Word or Markdown, up to 10 MB.
The brief needs to be a PDF, DOCX or MD file, 10 MB or smaller.

Review and submit

This is the order we'll read it in.

    By submitting you agree to how we handle applications, described at the bottom of this page and in our privacy policy.

    Got it. Thanks, .

    Someone on the Product team will read your answers, then your resume. You'll hear from us by email either way. If you know someone who should see this, pass it on.

    Thanks for writing in.

    Applications for the Senior Product Manager, Senior Product Solutions Engineer and Product Solutions Engineer roles are closed.

    If you applied, you'll hear from us by email. If you missed the window, keep an eye on ModalAI's careers page; we're still growing, and we'd still like to know what you want to build.

    Still reading? Get the email.

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    Send it along. The people we most want to hear from usually aren't looking. If you'd rather we reach out, tell us who and we will.