Founding Frontend Engineer

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:

• 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

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

• Meaningful equity — you're joining early, this matters
• Competitive salary
• Remote-first
• Direct access to founders with no layers and no bureaucracy
• Work that's genuinely hard and genuinely important

How to Apply

Navigate to the job on our website - https://www.pluton.earth/careers/founding-frontend-engineer. Click "Apply Now" and submit your application directly through our careers page. Along with your resume, please include:

1. A brief intro — who you are and why this role interests you
2. Links to work you're proud of — GitHub, live projects, or demos
3. One example of a complex mapping, data visualization, or 3D web project you've built We respond to every application. No recruiters please.