Senior Software Engineer

RED CAT HOLDINGS•Torrance, CA

3d•$132,000 - $183,000•Onsite

About The Position

FlightWave Aerospace is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop embedded software for autonomous aircraft and uncrewed aerial systems. This engineer will own production C and C++ software across microcontrollers and Linux-based application processors, integrate sensors and perception capabilities, and support systems from architecture and hardware bring-up through ground and flight test. The ideal candidate brings recent VTOL, UAS, or other vehicle embedded-software experience; deep expertise in real-time and embedded Linux systems; and the judgment to diagnose issues spanning software, electronics, sensors, networks, and vehicle behavior. The role partners with electrical, systems, controls, autonomy, test, manufacturing, and flight-operations teams.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Seven or more years of professional software development, including recent hands-on embedded development of aircraft, VTOL/UAS, autonomous vehicles, embedded systems, robotics, or comparable vehicle platforms.
Advanced embedded C and modern C++ proficiency, including object lifetime, ownership, concurrency, integer behavior, memory layout, performance, and undefined-behavior avoidance.
Production experience developing for both microcontrollers and application processors, such as ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-A class devices or comparable architectures.
Experience with an RTOS and embedded Linux, including scheduling, multithreading, IPC, boot flow, device interfaces, and system-level debugging.
Experience with vehicle and board interfaces such as DroneCAN/CAN/CAN FD, Ethernet, SPI, I2C, UART, MavLINK, BDShot, and GPIO, plus related transport or messaging protocols.
Experience integrating sensors or perception data on resource-constrained platforms, accounting for calibration, timing, dropped data, vibration, lighting, latency, and environmental failure modes.
Experience taking software from design and hardware bring-up through bench testing, vehicle integration, and field or flight testing.
Ability to create testable interfaces, automated tests, actionable logs, and measurable performance and reliability criteria.
Ability to explain technical decisions, lead reviews, mentor engineers, and collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams.

Nice To Haves

Direct VTOL, UAS, autopilot, flight-computer, or flight-control ecosystem experience, including PX4 or an equivalent platform.
Aerial-vehicle perception experience in sensor fusion, visual-inertial odometry, SLAM, GNSS-denied navigation, object detection, tracking, or terrain-relative localization.
Embedded computer-vision or machine-learning optimization using OpenCV, Eigen, CUDA, TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, or comparable technologies.
Hands-on NXP, Qualcomm, or NVIDIA processor development, including board-support packages, acceleration frameworks, profiling tools, and development kits.
Yocto Project, OpenEmbedded, Buildroot, custom Linux distributions, bootloaders, kernel configuration, or device-driver experience.
Qt and QML development for operator-facing or engineering applications.
Docker-based development or deployment workflows and cross-compilation for target hardware.
Conan for C/C++ dependency management and JFrog Artifactory for binary artifacts.
Python and GitLab CI/CD or comparable automated tooling for test, data analysis, builds, packaging, static analysis, and release.
Familiarity with DO-178C, ARP4754A, DO-254 interfaces, MISRA C/C++, requirements-based testing, structural coverage, or similar safety-related methods.
Secure boot, signed updates, trusted execution, platform hardening, or connected embedded-system cybersecurity experience.
Agentic development tools or workflows for coding, testing, documentation, or log analysis, with security, traceability, review, and human accountability.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, review, and maintain embedded C and C++ software for microcontrollers, application processors, and heterogeneous aircraft edge-compute platforms.
Own features from requirements and architecture through implementation, integration, verification, release, and ground or flight-test support.
Develop board-support, device-interface, middleware, and application-layer software for real-time operating systems and embedded Linux.
Integrate cameras, EO/IR payloads, IMUs, GNSS, radar, lidar, and other sensors with reliable data paths, time synchronization, health monitoring, and fault handling.
Develop or integrate perception capabilities including detection, tracking, localization, visual odometry, mapping, calibration, and multi-sensor fusion as programs require.
Optimize CPU, GPU, memory, I/O, startup, latency, throughput, and power while preserving deterministic behavior on critical paths.
Define secure, stable interfaces among perception, autonomy, flight controls, vehicle management, communications, payloads, and operator applications.
Diagnose cross-domain problems with target debuggers, traces, logic analyzers, telemetry, recorded sensor data, core dumps, and system logs.
Build and maintain unit, integration, software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, regression, and performance tests.
Analyze ground and flight data, drive defects to root cause, and establish measurable timing, memory, reliability, and functional acceptance criteria.
Contribute to requirements traceability, design reviews, coding standards, configuration management, risk analysis, and program assurance evidence.
Provide technical leadership through architecture decisions, code reviews, mentorship, planning, and multidisciplinary coordination.
Deliver maintainable production software on target hardware with actionable logs, testable interfaces, and automated regression coverage.
Support prototype and production integration, scheduled test events, and other duties aligned with the role as assigned.