Lead, Platform Software

Description

The company is a defense technology firm working to rebuild the US drone industrial base. It designs and manufactures high-performance unmanned systems, which have been tested in combat, and it iterates at startup pace while building at large scale.

The team moves quickly, works hands-on, and focuses on getting designs into the field as fast as possible. Its systems support the West's ability to compete and deter adversaries on the modern battlefield, with capability reaching warfighters in months rather than years.

In this role you will lead the team that owns the foundational embedded platform: the Linux distribution, kernel, bootloader, common runtime, and SDK. Flight, ground-station, and autonomy teams build their software on this platform. You will set its roadmap and manage its reliability and engineering quality, grow and lead the team, and treat every other engineering team as a customer.

Responsibilities

• Hire, mentor, and manage the performance of the platform software engineers
• Plan and deliver the embedded platform, covering the Linux distribution and board support packages, kernel and bootloader, runtime and libraries, and the cross-compile toolchain and SDK
• Manage the platform like a product, keeping interfaces that other teams rely on stable and versioned while still allowing them to evolve without breaking consumers
• Decide when to build versus adopt, how interfaces should be designed, and how resources are split across subsystems
• Define and enforce standards for code review, testing, and CI/CD on foundational software
• Stay hands-on by reviewing platform code and owning architecture, not only process

Requirements

• Have led a software team as a hands-on manager, handling both people management and technical direction
• Have deep embedded platform experience with custom Linux (Yocto or Buildroot), kernel and board support packages, bootloaders, and the runtime and SDK layer other teams build on
• Have run a platform or foundational software team as a product, with stable interfaces, versioning, and consuming teams that depend on it
• Show strong judgment on build-versus-adopt decisions, interface design, and resource trade-offs across an embedded system
• Can act as the link between the team and senior leadership, setting expectations upward and removing blockers to execution
• Stay a player-coach, technically credible enough to review board support, kernel, and runtime code and make architecture decisions
• Have experience building an embedded platform team from a small starting group
• Have MCU and RTOS platform work alongside embedded Linux
• Have led build-system work with Bazel or a comparable tool across cross-compiled targets
• Have worked on real-time, safety-relevant, or mission-critical embedded platforms
• Have brought new computer platforms from prototype to production

Conditions

US base salary range is $198,000 to $277,000 USD. This is an estimate covering base salary only, and the actual figure may vary with factors such as experience, education, training, critical skills, and business needs

The company is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or disability status

Benefits

• Highly competitive equity grants form part of the total compensation package