CAD/CAM Programmer

Foundational Industries

2d•Onsite

About The Position

Foundational is building a network of AI-native, autonomous factories for modern contract manufacturing — reshoring critical supply chains so companies can produce high-quality products domestically, quickly, and at competitive cost. Recent breakthroughs in robotics and physical AI have shifted autonomous manufacturing from theoretical to deployable. We are operationalizing these capabilities at scale during a decisive decade for American industrial leadership. MISSION You own the bridge between the shop floor and the software team. This role exists because great CAM automation can only be built by someone who has run the programs, argued with the post-processor, and watched chips fly. You will turn deep machining expertise into production-grade automated CAM software — and build the team and systems to keep it improving. If this role is empty, we are asking software engineers to guess what machinists need, and shipping code that does not hold up in the real world. WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN 6–12 MONTHS [6 months] You have mapped the highest-value CAM programming workflows and translated them into a prioritized automation roadmap, signed off by engineering and manufacturing leadership. [6 months] You have shipped at least one working prototype automation — toolpath generation, feature recognition, or post-processing — using a CAM software API, validated against real part geometries. [6 months] You have defined what "production-ready automated output" means for Foundational: the criteria, test cases, and acceptance benchmarks the software team builds and runs against. [12 months] You lead a cross-functional team of CAM programmers, machinists, and software engineers delivering the CAM automation roadmap on schedule. [12 months] Automated CAM outputs are validated against realistic machining scenarios and trusted enough to run on production machines with no manual re-work. [12 months] The product feedback loop is closed — you are gathering input from CAM programmers and machinists on the floor and translating it into feature improvements on a regular cycle. WHY FOUNDATIONAL This is a filter as much as it is an invitation. We are turning reindustrialization from a talking point into an operating reality. The work is hard, the environment is demanding, and the stakes are real. We compensate with base, bonus, and equity to reflect impact, responsibility, and results — with meaningful upside for the people who help build and scale this company. For those aligned with the mission and motivated by execution at scale, Foundational offers the opportunity to help define one of the most consequential industrial transformations of the next decade.

Requirements

3+ years programming parts in Mastercam, Fusion 360, Siemens NX CAM, hyperMILL, or a comparable package — on real production jobs, not tutorials.
Know 3-axis, 4-axis, and 5-axis milling, turning, and mill-turn toolpath strategies from the inside: where the defaults fail and why.
Can spec fixturing, select tooling, and set feeds and speeds without looking them up.
Can take a manual CAM workflow you run every day, break it into discrete steps, and write down exactly what a machine would need to do each one autonomously.
Can write a product requirement that a software engineer can act on — specific, scoped, and unambiguous.
Communicate clearly at the boundary between the shop floor and a software team: translating machining constraints into engineering requirements and back.
Scripted or automated something in a CAM environment — an API call, a macro, a template system — even if it was scrappy.
Defined product requirements, written specs, and shipped features alongside software engineers.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing CAM software at an established vendor (Autodesk, Siemens, Open Mind, CNC Software, etc.).
Experience with CAM automation systems: feature recognition, knowledge-based machining, generative or AI-assisted toolpaths, or parametric templates.
Familiarity with a CAM SDK/API — Mastercam .NET API, Autodesk Fusion API, NX Open, or similar.
Exposure to machine learning or AI applied to manufacturing.
Background in a production machine shop or contract manufacturing environment.
Experience with simulation and verification tools such as Vericut.

Responsibilities

Own the bridge between the shop floor and the software team.
Turn deep machining expertise into production-grade automated CAM software.
Build the team and systems to keep CAM automation improving.
Map the highest-value CAM programming workflows and translate them into a prioritized automation roadmap.
Ship at least one working prototype automation (toolpath generation, feature recognition, or post-processing) using a CAM software API.
Define "production-ready automated output" for Foundational.
Lead a cross-functional team of CAM programmers, machinists, and software engineers.
Gather input from CAM programmers and machinists on the floor and translate it into feature improvements.