Software Engineer - F-35 - Level 4

Lockheed Martin•Fort Worth, TX

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

This position is with the Core Processing Software team in Fort Worth, TX. This position requires a software engineer to use a wide application of technical principles, theories, and concepts in the software field to develop, integrate, and test software products for the F-35 program. You will be expected to lead in the design, development and integration of middleware software. Software development experience including requirements analysis, high-level and detailed design, coding, test planning, unit-testing, and CSCI integration testing is desired. You will be a member of a high-performing team and must be self-motivated with a strong work ethic, time-management, and interpersonal skills. You must have demonstrated effective pro-active communication skills as the position will require frequent inter-organizational and outside customer interactions.

Requirements

Development on Linux with hard real time extensions (PREEMPT_RT). Specifically developing multi-threaded real-time POSIX applications using real time scheduling policies (SCHED_FIFO, SCHED_RR) in user space, and developing device drivers in kernel space.
Strong C/C++ skills, x86 and ARM assembly, and familiarity with Python/Bash for scripting and automation
Debug proficiency with GDB/KGDB, LTTng, strace, dmesg, ftrace, perf, and hardware debug interfaces (JTAG, UART)
Expertise with Buildroot for creating custom root filesystems and toolchains
Experience with PTP (IEEE 1588) and implementations such as ptp4l, phc2sys, and related management tools
Ability to obtain DoD secret clearance
Bachelor’s degree or above from an accredited college in a software related major, or equivalent experience/combined education

Nice To Haves

Containerization & Orchestration – Experience packaging real time workloads with Podman (tar ball export/import) and deploying lightweight orchestration using K3s or pure Podman in air gapped environments. Ability to debug containers on target hardware (e.g., podman exec, nsenter, gdbserver, strace, in container LTTng tracing).
Understanding of namespaces, capes, and cgroups. Knowledge of seccomp (possibly BTF JIT) or AppArmor profiles for sandboxing containers and processes (as an alternative to SELinux).
Familiarity with the Yocto Project as an analogue for understanding Buildroot
Understanding of PCIe SR IOV, DMA, and memory mapped I/O for high throughput data paths
Experience with LynxSecure and the LynxOS operating system
Contributions to open source kernel, driver, or tracing projects
Familiar with File I/O
Familiar with Data Encryption\Decryption
Familiar with File Information Broker
Agile Software Development
Experience with JSF architecture
Complete software lifecycle development process and test philosophies
Experience with software pipelines
Experience using the Python scripting language
Atlassian Collaboration Tools (JIRA)

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and maintain Linux device drivers (PCIe, UART, SPI, I²C, etc.) with hard real time guarantees.
Implement and tune two level interrupt handling (top half/bottom half, threaded IRQs) to achieve microsecond latency.
Integrate and configure PREEMPT_RT or other real time patches; validate deterministic behavior with kernel tracing tools.
Perform kernel level debugging (KGDB, ftrace, perf, SystemTap) and use LTTng for low overhead tracing of interrupt paths and task scheduling.
Conduct latency/jitter analysis, root cause investigations, and apply mitigations such as IRQ affinity, priority inheritance, and priority ceiling protocols.
Implement, configure, and troubleshoot PTP (IEEE 1588) on Linux platforms.
Work with ptp4l, phc2sys, and related utilities to achieve sub microsecond clock synchronization for time critical applications.
Maintain Buildroot configurations for cross compiling the full Linux stack (kernel, root filesystem, bootloader) for target hardware.
Maintain CI pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, etc.) that automate builds, driver unit tests, and generation of firmware/software artifacts.
Partner with hardware designers to develop device drivers, collaborate with system designers to develop requirements for real-time safety-critical applications.
Produce clear technical documentation, design reviews, and support guides for internal teams and external partners.