About us
Our Company

Companion is on a mission to talk to dogs. We make the world’s first device that can interact with dogs at home for hours a day using cutting-edge hardware, machine learning, responsive software and best-in-class positive reinforcement techniques. This new category of in-home dog enrichment products represents an inflection point in the life and care dogs are able to lead at home.

Dogs of all ages and breeds love playing with Companion whether it’s practicing training with recorded voices or playing games that keep them mentally and physically stimulated.

Dogs are no longer just pets, their family. Knowing their dog is having fun, learning, safe and healthy while they’re busy or away from home gives pet parents peace of mind and relieves guilt. We pair our magic technology with a human touch. Our top-tier coaches personalize and oversee the dog's journey with Companion and provide data-backed insights into the dog's health and happiness.

There is no organization with more experience, talent, and desire to make dogs' lives better using technology. Our team has spent decades across machine learning, software and hardware, consumer products, design and canine behavior, cognition, and data science. Over the past four years, we’ve worked with 1000s of dogs of all ages and breeds, 5+ dog centers and 150+ homes.

Companion has raised $15M from investors that represent the leaders in pet care (Mars, Michelson Found Animals) and technology (Lerer Hippeau, IA Ventures, Tuesday Capital). Our advisors come from leading institutions, universities, and organizations with animal welfare, dog behavior and cognition, and technology.

Join Us

We do our best to make our work enjoyable and balanced. Working at Companion has many benefits, including:

  • Work with a team who loves animals and gets to work with dogs!
  • Competitive salary and equity
  • Work remotely from anywhere
  • Unlimited vacation
  • Get great benefits including medical, dental, vision, 401K matching, paid family leave, and childcare and petcare reimbursement for work travel
  • Home office set up allowance plus top-of-the-line computers
  • Quarterly budget to co-work with colleagues
Job Openings
How Our Teams Work

The software team at Companion is a small team of senior generalists. That means we work with a high degree of autonomy on a wide range of interesting problems. This is a place where you could work on algorithms, REST endpoints, code to control our hardware device, and machine learning all in the same week. Companion is a place where you can have a say in, and a direct impact on important engineering decisions that have an immediate impact on the team and company. We believe that high code quality allows us to keep moving fast and makes our developers happier.

Our product team is a growing group of experts in human and animal behavior. We work collaboratively to understand what is best for dogs and the people who love them. We do this by seeking to understand the problems that our customers face, the motivations that drive their behavior, and unique solutions that improve their quality of life. The product team works x-functionally through planning, prioritization, research, and design; and partners with the engineering team through development, testing, and iteration. This is a team where all ideas and feedback are welcome, where strong opinions are loosely held, where failure is celebrated as part of learning, and where product success is ultimately measured by the success of our customers (both human and dog).

Companion’s hardware team is an experienced group of people who have been there and done that. Years of developing and scaling complex electromechanical systems and devices with teams near and far. They have the foresight to anticipate challenges and develop solutions ahead of the curve. Working on some of the most beautiful and successful consumer products means that the engineering work they do is coupled with design chops to find the best and most elegant solutions.

Our Team

John Honchariw

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Shannon McClenaghan

President & Chief Operating Officer

Oliver Dain

VP Technology

Erynn Tomlinson

VP Digital Product Development

Eric Erickson

Senior Software Engineer

Libby Rockaway

Senior Manager Customer Experience

Patrick Mihelich

Principal Engineer

Evey Neely

Senior Software Engineer

Gregor Berkowitz

Hardware

Samantha Haeussner

Dog & Customer Experience Manager

Maggie Kudla

Dog & Customer Experience Manager
Board of Directors

Benny Buller

Founder & CEO, Velo3D

John Honchariw

Companion's Founder & CEO

Lerer Hippeau

Investor
Investors
Board of Advisors

Ken Ramirez

EVP & Chief Training Officer, Karen Pryor Clicker Training

Marty Becker

DVM, Founder of Fear Free

Dr. Mike McFarland

Chief Medical Officer, Zoetis

Dr. Diana Reiss

Professor Psychology, Hunter College; Trustee Interspecies Internet

Paul Mundell

Former CEO, Canine Companions for Independence

Ben Jacobs

Partner at Atmosphere, Co-Founder at Whistle, Modern Animal, Joylab

Andrew Bleiman

EVP North America, Tractive

Leila Takayama

Associate Professor of Human-Robot Interaction Researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Alexandra Protopopova

Assistant Professor of Animal Welfare at The University of British Columbia

Evan MacLean

Asst. Professor at the University of Arizona and Director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center

Erica Feuerbacher

Assistant Professor of Companion Animal Behavior and Welfare at Virginia Tech

Ed Shelton

Former Head Of New Product Innovation, Dyson

Subutai Ahmad

VP Research at Numenta

Ben Tseng

VC / Product leader

Jeff Linnell

Chief Executive Officer at Formant

Sol Lipman

EVP Product at Owlcam

Ken Conley

Advisor

Andre Neumann-Loreck

Founder and Managing Partner at On Tap Consulting

Simon Prins

ACT! Animal Consulting & Training
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