Senior Command and Control Software Engineer

Forterra • Clarksburg, MD

2d • $140,000 - $220,000

About The Position

As an extension of our core products in Command, Control, and Communications (C3) we are diving deeper into the EW space to make the systems and platforms we integrate more survivable. We are developing an Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) capability that will provide broad spectrum awareness that can aid national government off-the-shelf assets in the EMS. For communication, this will provide a real time database of inference and unoccupied spectrum to aid maneuver. For Electromagnetic Warfare (EW), this will, in parallel, provide a tip and queue interface to enable current EW and Signals Intelligence systems to more rapidly identify signals of interest driving toward an open "plug-and-play" approach with national government off-the-shelf assets.

We are looking for a senior embedded engineer to own software end-to-end on our edge devices — from the real-time signal-processing pipeline up through the data contracts and command-and-control interfaces that turn spectrum awareness into actionable, operator-facing information. You'll set technical direction on a small, fast-moving team and ship to deployed hardware.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with substantial time in edge, embedded, or systems-level environments
• Strong modern C++ (C++17/20) on Linux, plus Python for tooling and automation
• Experience building real-time or low-latency systems: deterministic pipelines, queuing, concurrency, and processing under throughput and timing constraints
• Demonstrated ownership of wire-level data formats, custom protocols, or packet/interface contracts (Protobuf or equivalent)
• Comfort with C++ build and dependency tooling (CMake, a package manager such as Conan) and containerized dev/deploy workflows (Docker)
• Track record of taking embedded software from bring-up through deployment on real hardware, working across firmware, host software, sensors, and integration teams
• Ability to set technical direction and own a meaningful slice of architecture on a small team

Nice To Haves

• RF / DSP fundamentals: IQ data, spectral processing, detection, or direction finding
• Experience on NVIDIA Jetson or comparable ARM/SoC edge platforms
• Zero-copy IPC or shared-memory pub/sub frameworks (iceoryx2, DDS, or similar)
• Edge ML inference deployment (TensorRT, ONNX)
• Sensor integration and fusion (IMU, multi-rate sensor inputs)
• Background in defense, EW/SIGINT, or other mission-critical real-time systems

Responsibilities

• Develop edge software and real-time pipelines in modern C++ that run on deployed NVIDIA Jetson (ARM/Linux) devices and support Command & Control (C2) systems
• Build low-latency, high-throughput data flows between processing stages using zero-copy IPC and pub/sub messaging (e.g. iceoryx2, ZeroMQ)
• Integrate edge software with radios and RF front-ends; work close to the signal — IQ data, spectral processing, detection, and direction finding
• Design and own wire-level data formats, packet ABIs, and interface contracts (e.g. Protobuf) that guarantee reliable data exchange across systems and teams
• Design and implement event-driven alerting and architecture that surface important information about sensor detections
• Develop telemetry software for edge devices that communicate with remote C2 systems, and build and maintain on-device storage for operational and sensor data
• Integrate and optimize edge ML inference (e.g. TensorRT / ONNX) into the real-time path where it adds operational value
• Own the build and deployment workflow (CMake, Conan, Docker) and drive hardware-in-the-loop bring-up
• Work closely with systems, hardware, and integration teams to deliver end-to-end functionality, and set technical direction for the embedded codebase

Benefits

• Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
• Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
• Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
• A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
• A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
• Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed