Senior Flight Software Engineer

Poseidon Aerospace•Alameda, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Flight software is the code that runs on the flight computers of our autonomous cargo aircraft. As a Senior Flight Software Engineer you will own major parts of that software, from architecture through flight test. You will decide how the software is structured, how it handles failures, and how it is tested, and you will write a large share of the code yourself. You will also set the technical bar for the engineers around you.

Requirements

B.S. in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
5+ years of professional C or C++ development on embedded, real-time, or safety-critical systems
Owned a flight software subsystem or equivalent from architecture through fielded operation
Took software through hardware integration and test on a real vehicle (aircraft, spacecraft, or automotive)
Designed fault detection and response for a system where failure had safety consequences
Led design reviews and set technical direction for other engineers

Nice To Haves

Flight software experience on crewed or uncrewed aircraft, or on spacecraft
RTOS or bare-metal development, with a deep understanding of scheduling, timing, and memory
Experience designing redundant or fault-tolerant flight computer architectures
Experience developing software under DO-178C or a comparable standard such as ISO 26262
Experience supporting flight test or vehicle test campaigns
Python for tooling, test automation, and flight data analysis
Clear technical writing

Responsibilities

Own the architecture of major flight software subsystems, including timing, partitioning, and redundancy
Design and implement deterministic, real-time embedded flight software in C++
Design fault detection and response for the aircraft, including redundancy management, degraded modes, and lost-link behavior
Define software requirements and interfaces with avionics, GNC, and flight test, and trace them to tests
Implement the GNC team’s algorithms in flight code and verify them against simulation
Set the test strategy across unit tests, software-in-the-loop, and hardware-in-the-loop
Build telemetry, logging, and command paths between the aircraft and the ground station
Lead software integration on the aircraft and support ground testing and flight test, including travel to our flight test site
Set coding standards and review practices, and lead design reviews
Mentor other flight software engineers