- The Career Coyote
- Posts
- 🐺 3 San Diego builders growing their teams this week.
🐺 3 San Diego builders growing their teams this week.
Plus an architecture and software firm building its engineering team in Carlsbad, and the swarm-autonomy company behind the US Army's Black Widow drone.
Three San Diego builders shipping this week: an architecture and software firm using AI to design urban infill housing, an AI tax prep platform for CPAs that just closed a $12M seed, and the swarm-autonomy team behind the US Army's Black Widow drone.
Howl yeah, let's dive in.
Cedar - 3 Open SD Roles
Austin-HQ architecture and software firm using AI to design urban infill housing. CTO Nate Peters moved to San Diego to build Cedar's engineering team.
Why they matter:
Cedar built cedarOS, an AI platform that reviews zoning codes, housing plans, and parcel data. Cedar's in-house architects then turn those insights into permit-ready designs.
Building codes are usually added, not subtracted, and this makes it more difficult to navigate, especially when regulations come from a city and state level.
Their focus is urban infill and "missing middle" housing: the neighborhoods already inside cities, not development at the edges. They go deep on local zoning ordinances to understand what can be built and they save budget that would have been used processing paperwork and navigating building codes.
Founded 2022 by CEO Kyle Vansice (AIA-licensed architect) and CTO Nate Peters (5 years at Autodesk before Cedar).
Team of about 20. Austin HQ, with the engineering team in a Carlsbad, CA office that Nate leads.
Open roles across:
Chief of Staff to the CTO (SD)
Senior Software Engineer (SD)
Software Engineer, Geometry & CAD Tooling (SD)
Juno - 3 Open SD Roles
San Diego AI tax prep platform built by a CPA. Closed $12M seed in April, then shipped Canopy, Karbon, and Firm360 integrations in the months after.
Why they matter:
Juno pulls data from tax source documents (W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, balance sheets, 100+ doc types), builds reviewable workpapers, and pushes results to Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect, or CCH Axcess.
Founder Dave Haase ran Golden State Accounting for 10 years prior to starting Juno.
In April, Juno closed a $12M seed led by Bonfire Ventures, with Impression Ventures and Xfund participating.
In June, they shipped Canopy and Karbon integrations.
In July, they added Firm360.
In August, they released an expected document checklist feature.
Their team processed over 500 tax returns on Juno in 2025.
Open roles:
Tax Software Specialist
Customer Success Manager
Tax Support Advisor
Apium Swarm Robotics - 5 Open Roles (3 SD, 2 Remote)
San Diego swarm-autonomy team operating as an independent Red Cat company. Their software lets one operator command many drones simultaneously, and powers the US Army's Black Widow.
Why they matter:
Apium builds distributed autonomy for unmanned systems. Their "one-to-many" swarming architecture lets a single operator command many drones or unmanned surface vessels simultaneously, with no master node. Multi-domain: air, land, and sea.
On March 30, Apium was acquired by Red Cat Holdings (Nasdaq: RCAT). Apium continues to operate as an independent Red Cat company with its own brand, careers, and founder-president leading in San Diego.
Apium's autonomy layer is embedded in the Black Widow drone, which is Red Cat's US Army Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) Program of Record.
In mid-August, Red Cat reported a blowout Q2, with the CEO citing Apium's swarming as enabling Black Widow to collaborate autonomously with Anduril systems.
Founded and led in San Diego by President Josh Ziska, ex-Navy. SD in-office roles are in Sorrento Valley.
Open roles:
Senior Autonomous Behavior Engineer (SD)
Director of Business Development (SD)
Mission Engineer, Air Systems (SD)
Software Engineer, Swarm Systems (Remote)
Senior Software Engineer, Swarm Systems (Remote)
Also worth knowing
Art of Problem Solving - 5 open SD roles. Advanced K-12 math and STEM education, founded 2003, dual HQ in San Diego and San Francisco.
Founder Richard Rusczyk returned as CEO in February, dropped a brand refresh last week, and Beast Academy just won the 2026 EdTech Cool Tool Award for Best Math Solution.
Rising Tide Partners - Portfolio job board. Neal Bloom's solo-GP fund investing at pre-seed and seed in hardtech and autonomy.
His portfolio job board is a curated hiring funnel across SD hardtech: Firestorm, Natilus, Seasats, Xzom, BlueNalu, Cabana, Bear Club, and Eventship are all in the fund and hiring. Where else to look for SD hardtech roles.
Still on the Radar
Two companies from last week still hiring and worth your time:
Iambic Therapeutics - 10+ open SD roles. AI drug discovery. Takeda deal that could exceed $1.7B.
ExploreTech - 2 open SD roles. AI-designed drill targeting for active 2026 mining projects.
Let's help good people find great San Diego teams.
Jonah 🐺
the Howl Guy
Find me on LinkedIn
