Lead Software Engineer - Backend and Optimisation

## About the Role You'll build the backend APIs and mathematical core of our design engine, developing optimization models, geometric algorithms, and simulation systems that translate extracted plan information into physically valid, optimized 3D building structures — all while capturing the real-world constraints of residential construction and serving these models to our applications. Your work will power the engine that turns drawings into buildable designs. ## What You'll Do - Build APIs and services to provide conduction design models to frontend applications using Python and FastAPI. - Design and implement optimization models using operations research techniques including constrained programming, linear programming, and mixed-integer programming (MIP) - Develop computational geometry systems that convert plan-derived data into structured 3D building representations - Build simulation and constraint systems that model real-world construction rules, structural relationships, and material layouts - Develop production-grade Python systems that solve large-scale optimization and geometric problems - Improve performance and scalability of heavy mathematical workloads through algorithm design, solver tuning, and profiling - Work closely with ML engineers and platform engineers to integrate optimization systems into the broader plan ingestion and design pipeline - Ensure mathematical systems are reliable, testable, maintainable, and production-ready ## What Makes You a Great Fit - High agency: you take ownership of difficult systems and drive them to production - You enjoy translating messy real-world rules into clean mathematical formulations - You care deeply about performance, determinism, and correctness - You are comfortable operating independently in a fast-paced engineering environment - You communicate clearly and collaborate well with engineers across disciplines ## Bonus Points - Experience with OR solvers (Gurobi, CPLEX, SCIP, OR-Tools) - Background in computational geometry, geometric modeling, or spatial algorithms - Experience building large-scale optimization systems - Familiarity with performance optimization in numerical or simulation workloads - Familiarity with the construction, CAD, or manufacturing domains ## What We Offer - Competitive salary + meaningful equity - Comprehensive benefits (health, dental, vision) - Professional development budget (courses, conferences, research exploration) - Real-world optimization problems with direct impact - High growth potential ## About the Company Benchmark (formerly BotBuilt, Y Combinator W21) is building the next generation of technology behind American homebuilding. We're starting with one of the hardest parts of the stack: reliably turning messy, real-world construction plans into structured, usable data. Our systems translate architectural drawings into detailed digital representations of homes — including framing systems, materials, and structural components — that can drive downstream automation, analysis, and construction workflows.