Forward Deployed Engineer, Software

Auterion•Arlington, VA

About The Position

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be the primary technical interface between Auterion and our UAV customers, guiding them through the full software integration journey — from initial architecture decisions to production deployment. This role is rooted in hands-on C++ software engineering, with a focus on deploying Auterion's flight software stack onto customer UAV platforms. You'll work across embedded Linux, PX4-based flight control, and onboard computer environments, helping customers ship reliable, safe drone systems at scale.

Requirements

3+ years of hands-on C++ software engineering experience, ideally in embedded or robotics contexts.
Strong understanding of embedded Linux environments (systemd, device trees, inter-process communication, real-time constraints).
Experience deploying software onto UAV or autonomous platforms, including integration with flight controllers (PX4 experience strongly preferred).
Familiarity with MAVLink, ROS2, or similar robotics middleware.
Comfortable working directly with customer engineering teams in a technical lead capacity.
Experience with RTOS environments (NuttX, FreeRTOS, or similar).
US citizenship and eligibility for security clearance required.

Nice To Haves

UAV pilot certification or practical flight operations experience.
Willingness to travel internationally to support customer deployments on-site.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end deployment of Auterion's software stack into customer UAV systems including BSP bring-up, driver integration, middleware configuration, and onboard application development in C++.
Collaborate with Auterion's product engineering team to design and implement customer-specific software features in C++ across embedded Linux and RTOS/microcontroller environments.
Serve as a subject-matter expert on PX4 and Auterion OS, helping customers configure, tune, and extend flight control behaviour for their specific UAV use cases.
Act as the primary engineering contact for customer teams, diagnosing integration issues, unblocking development, and ensuring successful deployment milestones.
Produce integration guides, code samples, and reference implementations that reduce time-to-deployment and scale Auterion's support capabilities.
Work with internal product, engineering, and operations teams to close feedback loops between customer deployments and Auterion's product roadmap.