My journey to Arena Physica, like the company itself, involved a combination of hardware, EM waves, and physics. I studied Computer Engineering and Physics in college, and worked on robotics projects for boats and aerial vehicles. I then joined Palantir as a Forward Deployed Engineer, focused on electronic warfare. I was interested in hardware and signals challenges that companies were solving, and when I read the Not Boring article co-written by Pratap, I immediately applied.
Arena Physica was tailored to my interests: a heavy emphasis on electromagnetic waves and physics-oriented problem sets, mixed with an underlying focus on designing more intelligent hardware sprinkled with some pretty awesome people. The company was working on problems that would foster change for the next 1 to 2 years, and that would shake the engineering landscape for the next 5 to 10+ years, and that was too exciting to ignore.
Today, I’m a Forward Deployed Software Engineer working primarily with our aerospace and defense customers. Most of my days are spent working with a customer on their usage of Atlas, or directly on advancing Atlas’ capabilities. My work with customers varies, as I interface with mechanical, electrical, software, RF, and perception engineers. My work on Atlas also spans a wide range: expanding agentic reasoning through new agent architectures, building harness infrastructure like real-time telemetry pipelines, and creating custom integrations that bring Atlas directly to an engineer’s test bench, site, or workstation. The variety is part of the challenge and the appeal, and Arena Physica is truly a full stack software company.
The problem set stretches from a foundation model for one of the four fundamental forces of nature all the way to semiconductor design, circuit board layout, and the debugging of fully integrated hardware systems like drones and server racks. I am most excited about exploring the bridges between these varied disciplines, and seeing how ML solutions diverge and overlap between them.
One of my favorite memories is an early one, on my third day of work to be specific. I was onsite with a customer to assist with their test flights in what is typically referred to as the middle of nowhere. I was eager and excited to help with the usage of Atlas within their flights. At the site we all quickly realized we had no power and no internet, and we spent the bulk of the morning getting the generator (and then backup generator) and Starlink to work. It was an early lesson to never know what to expect when it comes to deploying hardware.
My advice to anyone interested in joining is to learn how to work in a team. No matter how quick you might be able to do something by yourself, if you want to go far, you have to journey together!
And in classic Arena Physica tradition, here’s my hot take: tea will and should be the dominant form of caffeine consumption in society (sorry coffee lovers).
Come join us in the Arena! We’re actively hiring for Forward Deployed Engineers - learn more at arenaphysica.com/careers.