Forget “Nobody’s Hiring.” These 25 Companies are Digging for Talent
We at OutGeek: Women in Tech rounded up 25 critical minerals and mining tech companies hiring right now, and sorted them by what they actually do.
You’ve seen the posts: “tech is dead,” “2,000 applicants per role,” “maybe I’ll go back to school.” Meanwhile, startups are hiring engineers to pull rare earths out of dead magnets, extract metals with proteins, and send AI hunting for copper a mile underground.
That’s not a sci-fi pitch. It’s the hottest corner of tech hiring, and almost nobody on your feed is talking about it.
Your phone, your EV, every AI data center: none of them exist without critical minerals. Governments are racing for them, investors are throwing billions at them, and the companies winning that race need software engineers, data scientists, product people, ops, sales. Mining has always been a boys’ club. If we don’t walk in now, the backbone of all tech gets built without us. Again.
So we at OutGeek: Women in Tech took 25 critical minerals and mining tech companies that are hiring right now, and sorted them so we all get it. 👇
🔍 Find it: AI that knows where to dig
- KoBold Metals - AI-driven discovery of battery and EV metals (Berkeley)
- EARTH AI - AI exploration and drilling for critical metals (San Francisco)
- GeologicAI - AI core scanning and resource modeling (Calgary)
- Exodigo - AI underground mapping from multi-sensor data (Palo Alto)
- Mantle8 - natural hydrogen exploration with predictive models (Grenoble)
- Ivanhoe Electric - mineral exploration for copper and critical metals (Tempe)
- Scout Discoveries Corp. - mineral exploration in Idaho (Coeur d’Alene)
🤖 Mine it: robots, drones and smarter sites
- AIM - autonomous fleets from heavy machinery (Redmond)
- EACON Mining Technology - autonomous haulage for surface mines (West Perth)
- GA Drilling - autonomous hard-rock drilling (Bratislava)
- Propeller - drone and survey platform for mines and quarries (Surry Hills)
- Razor Labs - AI predictive maintenance for mining (Tel Aviv-Yafo)
- HPY Sorting - sensor-based ore sorting machines (Shenzhen)
- Strata Worldwide - safety and connectivity tech for mining (Sandy Springs)
⚗️ Refine it: turning rock (and wastewater) into metal
- Mariana Minerals - software-driven critical minerals supply (San Francisco)
- Alta Resource Technologies - protein-based rare earth extraction (Boulder)
- Element3 - lithium from oil and gas wastewater (Fort Worth)
- Phoenix Tailings - rare earth refining from mining tailings (Woburn)
- Nth Cycle - electroextraction to refine critical minerals (Burlington)
- pH7 Technologies - sustainable critical metals extraction (Vancouver)
- DISA TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED - slurry ablation to upgrade critical minerals (Casper)
- US Strategic Metals - critical minerals processing hub (St. Louis)
♻️ Reuse it: recycling and trading what we already dug up
- Cyclic Materials - rare earth recycling from end-of-life magnets (Toronto)
- DEScycle - metals recovery from e-waste (London)
- Metallium Ltd - flash joule heating for metal recovery (HQ undisclosed)
- Metycle - AI-assisted secondary metal trading platform (Cologne)