May 10, 2026
Cash rich, equity messy
9 Mothers (YC P26) Is Hiring
Big salaries, tiny ownership, and the internet is already arguing about whether it’s genius or a red flag
TLDR: 9 Mothers is hiring eight on-site roles in Austin with eye-popping pay, including some reaching $400,000. Online, people are split between admiration for the big salaries and side-eye over the tiny ownership stakes, with the unusual company name adding extra chaos.
Startup 9 Mothers just posted 8 jobs in Austin, and the listings are the kind that make people do a double take: salaries stretching from $150,000 to $400,000 for roles in robotics, machine vision, and mechanical design, with every job marked on-site only. But the real entertainment isn’t the hiring page — it’s the crowd reaction. The biggest debate? “Wow, those salaries are huge” versus “wait, that ownership slice is microscopic.” In plain English, the cash looks flashy, but some readers immediately zoomed in on the tiny percentage of the company being offered and started asking whether candidates are being paid like stars while owning almost none of the future upside.
That kicked off the classic startup comment-section cage match. One camp said this is just what a serious hardware company looks like: expensive talent, in-person work, no nonsense. The other camp was less impressed, joking that the pay is “marry rich” money but the ownership is “find coins in the couch” money. And yes, people absolutely got stuck on the company name too. 9 Mothers inspired a wave of jokes, confused reactions, and “what exactly do they build?” comments, with readers split between calling the name unforgettable and calling it pure chaos. Add in the Austin-only requirement, and the thread turned into a mini culture war about return-to-office, startup ambition, and whether flashy compensation can make people overlook a weird brand and a very small slice of the pie.
Key Points
- •9 Mothers has eight open positions listed on its jobs page.
- •All listed roles are based in Austin and marked as full-time, on-site positions.
- •The openings are split between Mechanical Engineering and Software Engineering.
- •Mechanical Engineering roles include Lead Mechatronics Engineer and Senior Mechatronics Engineer.
- •Software Engineering roles cover computer vision, embedded systems, machine learning, perception, and robotics, with salaries ranging from $150K to $400K.