Senior Engineer – Robotics Middleware & Applications

Axon•Washington, DC

4d•$141,000 - $225,600•Hybrid

About The Position

The Axon Robotics Middleware & Applications team is part of the Robotics New Ventures Pillar and supports critical Drone offerings for Special Forces and Law Enforcement. These Drones work together harmoniously to provide Tactical Reconnaissance and Advantage during critical and stressful missions. Both aerial and ground robots are developed. We are actively working on truly disruptive, innovative next-generation Drone technology that we strongly believe will advance our mission to Protect Life. The Robotics Middleware & Applications team owns the Upper Middleware layers on a powerful Embedded Linux System-on-Chip. This means building and maintaining high-performance, reliable Linux daemons and services that orchestrate all business-critical use cases for Robots, including: Device cloud registration, Firmware Updates, Video Streaming Pipeline, Video Recording Pipeline, Logging & Diagnostics, Robotics use cases and more, and Test Automation for all of the above use cases. Beyond these core responsibilities, this team collaborates very closely with Controls and Vision Engineers to help tune the Drone and contributes to advanced flying and maneuvering capabilities. The team also works closely with Platform BSP, Camera Imaging, Lower Middleware, and Hardware Engineering teams. Rust is the preferred language, but C/C++ is also heavily used. Python is used for scripting and test automation. As a strong, senior engineer — either level 1 or level 2 — on the Robotics Middleware & Applications team, you'll be responsible for architecting and developing the daemon infrastructure that powers Robot business logic, while also contributing to a culture of engineering excellence through mentorship, design documentation, and best-in-class testing practices. Working on these next-generation robotics products is not only a career-defining accomplishment, but a real opportunity to help advance the mission to Protect Life.

Requirements

Candidates with active Robotics experience on mobile phone-like System-on-Chips (SoC) using embedded Linux will be prioritized over those with Microcontroller-only experience.
We also prioritize candidates who have shipped a product from start to finish and stayed with it post-release to learn from its in-market performance.
Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Robotics, or equivalent
Minimum 5+ years of industry experience building commercial products
Minimum 5+ years of experience with C/C++, Python, and/or Rust
Demonstrated track record of bringing commercial devices to market
Strong experience with Linux user-space daemon development and service architecture
Strong experience with performant inter-process communication (e.g. ZeroMQ, Zenoh, D-Bus, or similar)
Experience building and owning device lifecycle features such as firmware OTA updates, device pairing, or video pipeline management
Strong understanding of Systems Architecture, with the ability to implement complex, multi-service, interrelated systems
Strong understanding of Operating Systems, Concurrency, and Networking concepts
Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and QA processes, including test automation frameworks
Solid Software Engineering background (algorithms, data structures)
clarify ambiguous requirements before diving into a solution
break problems into well-scoped prompts and iterate when AI output is wrong or incomplete
critically review AI-generated code rather than accepting it at face value
explain the underlying fundamentals (data structures, concurrency, design tradeoffs) of whatever gets built, regardless of who typed it
bring a real testing and debugging strategy to the table
We also want to hear about how you've grown your own AI fluency — what you've experimented with on your own initiative, where it's worked, where it hasn't, and what you've learned along the way.
We're not grading for "prompt engineering" skill alone. We're looking for strong software engineers who know how to direct, question, and elevate AI-assisted work — not just accept it.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Robotics simulation tools such as Gazebo
Experience with Computer Vision techniques (SLAM/VIO), Control systems, or Trajectory Optimization
Experience with MAVLink, PX4, or similar Flight Controllers
Experience with ROS2 System Bus
Experience with video streaming protocols and pipelines (GStreamer, RTSP, WebRTC)
Experience with the Yocto build system

Responsibilities

Architect, design and develop Linux user-space daemons that orchestrate all Robot business use cases end-to-end
Develop in C/C++ and Rust in resource-constrained Embedded Linux environments; use Python for scripting and test automation
Design and implement performant inter-process communication between daemons and across system boundaries
Collaborate with Controls Engineers to help tune drone behavior and contribute to advanced flying and maneuvering algorithms
Integrate Sensors and Actuators, complex logic, and autonomous behavior into middleware services
Implement Robotics use-cases in ROS2 and custom Robotics Frameworks
Ensure high quality across the entire product lifecycle — design and implement Unit Tests, Integration Tests, and CI pipelines
Be hands-on with prototyping, development, and debugging at all stages of the product lifecycle
Author design documents and technical specifications for middleware systems
Invest in the growth of those around you — sharing knowledge, raising the engineering bar, and helping build a team culture where excellence, curiosity, and craftsmanship thrive
Collaborate with distributed Hardware, Software, Firmware, Controls, Manufacturing, and Compliance teams