Senior Embedded Software Engineer

Company overview

We are a U.S.-based UAV (drone) technology company building advanced airborne systems-from sensors to aircraft and mission platforms - that deliver critical data worldwide. Our mission is to redefine aerial capabilities by producing resilient, mission-ready hardware and software for commercial and government customers.

Team - Vehicle & Avionics Systems

This team turns designs into flight-proven aircraft and subsystems: power, comms, flight control, deployment mechanisms, avionics, payload integration, and the embedded software/firmware that runs them. We validate every component on our operational UAV fleet to ensure reliability when it matters.

Role - Lead Embedded Engineer

We’re hiring an experienced Principal Software Engineer to lead architecture, development, integration, testing, and documentation of embedded flight software for UAVs. You’ll provide technical leadership, mentor engineers, and work cross-functionally from requirements through flight test and operations.

Location: On-site, Washington DC

Key responsibilities

• Lead design and delivery of reliable, fault-tolerant embedded flight software.
• Translate customer and systems requirements into architecture and implementations; manage subsystem interfaces.
• Collaborate with ground systems and operations teams to ensure end-to-end system coherence.
• Develop command, control, and payload software for flight operations.
• Define and lead unit, subsystem, and system-level test campaigns (including automated tests).
• Produce and maintain clear operational and interface documentation.
• Present technical concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Own software lifecycle concerns: architecture, integration & test, scalability, and multi-generation compatibility.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field.
• 8 years in high-reliability software development; 5 years technical leadership across multiple teams.
• Proven experience architecting and developing embedded software in Rust and/or modern C (concurrent & asynchronous).
• Strong skills in processor architecture, performance and memory optimization, and designing for testability (runtime logging, etc.).
• Experience with CI pipelines, automated builds/releases, and static/dynamic analysis.
• Proficient with embedded ARM/SoC development and working in Linux, RTOS, or bare‑metal environments.
• Familiar with containerized tooling (Docker, Kubernetes) and Agile development practices.
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, dynamic engineering environment.

Preferred

• Advanced degree.
• Extensive experience with flight software, autonomous systems, or mission-critical robotics.
• Python proficiency, secure-coding experience, and knowledge of common hardware interfaces (Ethernet, SPI, I²C, UART, PCIe).
• Experience with distributed systems and fault-critical software design.