Flight Software Architect

Leidos•Huntsville, AL

7d•$154,050 - $278,475•Onsite

About The Position

Leidos is hiring a Senior Embedded Flight Software Architect for its Airborne Systems Business Area in Huntsville, Alabama. The position focuses primarily on system and software design for robust, innovative, modular software for real-time embedded airborne systems. It also supports software used in fielding, operations, support, and maintenance. Architecture work spans embedded flight software, analysis tools and simulations, mission-planning software, and components of mission-critical systems. The work involves a variety of embedded technologies, hardware, interfaces, and development and debugging tools. The architect also provides technical advice to program and capture teams, customers and stakeholders, talent acquisition specialists, and senior business leaders. The role provides hands-on technical leadership throughout software development, including implementation, firmware guidance, and integration and testing on target platforms. The architect evaluates conceptual architectures and technical tradeoffs, guides teams in disciplined engineering practices, and maintains the technical integrity of assigned designs. The position requires close collaboration with software and systems engineers, program and technical leads, test leads, electrical designers, customers, and other stakeholders. Candidates will be evaluated on architectural competency through structured interviews, design exercises, and technical discussions, including their design experience, decision-making, technical leadership, versatility, and career growth. The position requires a high degree of flexibility in work assignments and willingness to perform some work in person at the company site. The candidate must be a U.S. citizen and eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret-level U.S. Department of Defense security clearance.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent technical degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, or a related equivalent technical field.
U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Department of Defense Secret security clearance.
12 or more years of relevant technical experience; relevant academic, internship, research, or professional technical experience may be considered. Advanced degrees and specifically relevant architecture training or certification may reduce the required experience.
Prior relevant experience developing, integrating, testing, or troubleshooting embedded software or embedded-adjacent applications that interface with, operate, monitor, support, simulate, control, or communicate with embedded systems.
Extensive knowledge of disciplined software engineering practices, including requirements analysis, configuration management, version control, coding standards, peer review, unit and integration testing, automated testing frameworks, and software verification.
Ability to formulate and express software architectures using at least one industry-recognized design technique or notation and to learn and apply unfamiliar techniques quickly.
Ability to evaluate architectures against functional requirements, system-level quality attributes, performance constraints, integration risks, and lifecycle considerations, and document and communicate decisions and rationale.
Competency with at least one architectural design pattern, one detailed design pattern, and object-oriented design principles.
Familiarity with embedded processor architectures and their use in microcontrollers, SoCs, SoMs, or similar implementations.
Substantial knowledge of performance-constrained and real-time embedded systems, including several of: RTOS-based designs, safety-critical software, hardware/software integration, deterministic memory management, concurrency and multithreading, headless operation, real-time scheduling, hard and soft real-time constraints, and embedded communication protocols such as MIL-STD-1553, ARINC 429, or CAN.
Strong competency in at least one relevant embedded programming language: C, C++, or Rust; understanding of the implications and tradeoffs of software design decisions in these or other high-level languages such as Java, C#, or Python.
Aptitude with one or more architecture tools or IDEs, such as Cameo Systems Modeler, Rhapsody, Visio, PlantUML, or Diagram-As-Code.
Strong quantitative, analytical, technical leadership, and communication skills, including ability to work across technical disciplines and product teams.
Professionalism, strong character and technical judgment, commitment to sound technical decisions and high standards of accuracy and quality, and ability to constructively challenge assumptions.
Ability to participate effectively in peer reviews by submitting work for review, incorporating feedback, and reviewing others’ work constructively.
Willingness to perform a portion of the work in person at the company site.

Nice To Haves

Experience with one or more Government Reference Architectures.
Experience with applicable industry standards, frameworks, and process models, such as ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207, CMMI, DO-178, DO-278, RMF, MIL-STD-882, or MISRA.
Experience developing software technical data and deliverables in accordance with applicable software Data Item Descriptions (DIDs).
Experience using AI to assist with software specification, design, coding, testing, or technical document generation.
Experience using AI/ML models in integrated solutions, such as autonomous behaviors or adaptive algorithms.
Experience with FPGA-based systems, including hardware/software partitioning and integration with programmable logic.
Experience designing and implementing time-critical software for integrated systems, such as real-time control software, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, sensors, vehicles, medical devices, or IoT components.
Experience with hardware/software integration, bootloaders, and development tools such as JTAG debuggers, logic analyzers, logs, oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, and RTOS-specific build, trace, and profiling tools.
Aptitude with Linux and Windows operating systems and their administrative features.

Responsibilities

Design modular, composable, open, testable, reusable, scalable, and resilient embedded software structures, interfaces, and behaviors for airborne systems, conforming to relevant standards.
Provide hands-on technical leadership during software development, including embedded implementation in C, C++, or Rust; guide firmware development; support integration and testing on target platforms; and contribute directly when appropriate.
Develop and evaluate conceptual flight software architectures for primary and supporting systems, considering new development, reuse, hybrid approaches, and technical, cost, schedule, and risk tradeoffs.
Identify relevant standards, practices, processes, and deliverables; guide teams in following them; and conduct hands-on reviews and mentoring.
Collaborate with software developers, program teams, solution architects, and corporate technical leadership, maintaining accountability for architecture integrity and seeking reviews, challenging assumptions, and incorporating feedback.
Advise Software IPT Leads, Technical Leads, and Test Leads on execution, estimation, development, verification, validation, and customer or stakeholder presentations.
Work with systems engineers to model and maintain software architectures using MBSE techniques, modeling standards, frameworks, methodologies, and reference architectures.
Assist electrical designers with solution formulation, trade studies, and selection of electrical systems and embedded computing hardware platforms.
Support working groups and consortia with software architecture expertise, requests for comments, and contributions.
Participate in Agile planning, write epics and high-level stories, estimate tasks, and support execution and progress reporting.
Participate in requirements and design reviews and share relevant architectural knowledge with the team.
Contribute solutions, software architectures, and evidence-based estimates to proposals, and advise capture teams as a software subject-matter expert.
Communicate directly and regularly with customers, end users, and team members.
Perform other software-architect-related technical duties as assigned.