UAS Software Engineer

Description

You will report to the Chief Product Officer and work in the Workshop, the engineering department where autonomous systems are designed, built, tested and refined, from first concept to prototype.

The Workshop covers the whole UAS stack, including software, platform design, RF and propulsion, and the teams work closely together.

The culture favours quick iteration, learning early, and openly questioning ideas, with engineers free to test and improve their work with little friction.

The company builds NDAA-compliant UAS and counter-UAS platforms for government, defence and special operations customers. Its Center of Excellence handles training, service, support and market enablement.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain core software libraries used across all of the company's platforms.
• Help develop and ship software features that answer customer requirements and real use cases.
• Improve the speed and efficiency of mission planning and operational software, such as battery use and route planning.
• Work with customers, hardware and manufacturing teams across the product lifecycle, giving prompt feedback that shapes the final design.
• Diagnose and fix complex faults in deployed systems, keeping them performing well in the field and resolving issues customers report.
• Help design and build UAS software, including flight control, mission management and payload integration.
• Track new technologies and industry trends, then recommend and adopt those that improve products and processes.

Requirements

• Required: demonstrated experience in UAS, aerospace, defence, automotive or other high-reliability fields, plus relevant software development.
• Desirable: a Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics or Physics. Equivalent hands-on experience designing and building complex hardware systems will be considered instead.
• Desirable: experience deploying containerised software with orchestration tools such as Docker or Kubernetes.
• Desirable: background in multi-agent coordination, particularly with UAVs.
• Desirable: military experience or a background in defence.
• Desirable: experience with 3D geospatial analysis and mapping frameworks such as Cesium, MapBox or TAK.
• Desirable: experience building software that works without internet access or offers local, offline functionality.
• Desirable: exposure to uncrewed systems topics such as fixed-wing flight mechanics, UAV control, mesh networking and launch systems.
• 3+ years developing UAS, robotics or mission-critical software in C++ and/or Python, including reusable libraries and integration with larger architectures such as middleware or message-passing frameworks.
• Hands-on work with UAV or robotics integration, including sensors, navigation stacks or flight control, and validating software through simulation, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing and flight tests.
• Experience supporting customer deployments and fixing field issues, diagnosing software problems in operational settings and building fixes for real use cases.
• A solid grasp of data structures, algorithms, concurrency and code optimisation.
• Experience troubleshooting remotely deployed software, working with customers to find root causes and deliver fixes.
• Skills in Python, Golang or C++; Mavlink, BetaFlight, ArduPilot or PX4; Docker; and Scrum, Agile or Kanban.
• Excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills.
• Experience taking a concept through to a mature prototype.
• Strong attention to detail and critical thinking.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity and taking ownership of delivery.
• Able to thrive in a fast-paced environment.

Conditions

The company is an equal opportunities employer.