Vehicle Software Engineer

Rainmaker Technology Corporation • El Segundo, CA

4d

About The Position

Rainmaker is developing an integrated cloud-seeding system using weather-resistant UAS, radar and satellite observations, numerical weather prediction, novel sensing and validation systems, and sustainable seeding technologies to make more freshwater available to farms, ecosystems, and communities. The vehicle software team builds the software that operates the vehicles, connecting flight control, onboard computing, sensors, payloads, and ground operations, in close collaboration with electrical, mechanical, manufacturing, and flight operations teams.

The Vehicle Software Engineer owns vehicle software capabilities from operator interfaces through onboard mission execution. Work spans ground stations, mission planning and execution, failsafe behaviors, sensing, payload and sensor integration, and autonomy. The engineer takes projects from architecture and prototyping through simulation, hardware integration, flight testing, deployment, and field support, with responsibility for reliable operation in real-world conditions.

The software stack includes Rust onboard services and ground-station backends, React/TypeScript interfaces in Electron, and PX4 flight-control integration over MAVLink. Success in the first 90 days includes understanding mission workflows and system behavior end to end, identifying key reliability risks and operator pain points, delivering a tested improvement into an operational release, validating intended and failure behavior, and improving a recurring source of operational friction.

Requirements

• At least 3 years of hands-on experience developing software for vehicles, robotics, or other systems that interact with the physical world, including deployment into production or field use.
• Demonstrated ownership of a software capability from design through integration, release, and ongoing support, including independent technical decisions and resolving failures in real operating conditions.
• Strong systems programming skills in Rust or C/C++, and willingness to work primarily in Rust and contribute to TypeScript-based operator interfaces.
• Experience developing and debugging software on Linux, including concurrent processes, network communication, and interfaces to hardware or flight-control systems.
• Practical experience in at least one of operator interfaces and ground stations, mission planning, autonomy, sensing, or payload integration, and willingness to work across these areas.
• Ability to reason about distributed-system state, timing, and failures, and implement robust state machines, fault detection, failsafes, and recovery paths.
• Practical approach to operator-facing software, translating field workflows into clear controls, useful feedback, and predictable behavior.
• Experience building maintainable software using version control, reproducible builds, automated testing, and disciplined release practices.
• Evidence of high agency: proactively identifying problems, making sound decisions with incomplete information, seeking help when needed, and following through on results.
• Clear communication and ability to work closely with hardware engineers and operators, explain tradeoffs, and document decisions for operation and support.

Nice To Haves

• Experience deploying drones or autonomous robots and supporting real-world flight or field operations.
• Familiarity with PX4, MAVLink, ground-control systems, or flight-critical software.
• Experience building operator interfaces with React, TypeScript, or Electron, particularly mapping tools or geospatial mission-planning workflows.
• Experience with sensor fusion, state estimation, path planning, or autonomous mission execution.
• Experience integrating payloads, sensors, or embedded controllers over interfaces such as CAN, serial, or Ethernet.
• Experience validating safety-related behaviors through simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, fault injection, and field testing.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, implementation, and maintenance of vehicle software across onboard computers and ground systems, defining clear contracts for commands, telemetry, state, and failure behavior.
• Build ground-station interfaces and workflows for vehicle preparation, preflight checks, mission control, health monitoring, and operator intervention; make vehicle state, command outcomes, and required actions clear.
• Develop mission-planning and execution software that creates validated flight paths and geofences, accounts for vehicle endurance, coordinates flight and seeding activity, and supports changes as conditions evolve.
• Design and validate arming checks, interlocks, and failsafe behaviors for communication loss, degraded sensing, low power, process failures, and unexpected vehicle states, including transitions between autonomous behavior and operator control.
• Integrate sensors, cameras, and seeding payloads with onboard software and flight-control systems, ensuring reliable and observable measurements, calibration, timestamps, device health, and payload commands.
• Develop autonomy that uses sensing and vehicle state to execute missions within operating limits, handle contingencies, and reduce operator workload.
• Build dependable vehicle-to-ground-station communications that account for intermittent links, stale telemetry, and delayed, duplicated, or unacknowledged commands.
• Build automated tests, software-in-the-loop simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop coverage to catch regressions and exercise failure modes before releases reach the fleet.
• Partner with hardware engineers and flight operations to validate capabilities on the bench and in flight, and make deployment, configuration, calibration, and diagnostics repeatable.
• Investigate field failures using logs, telemetry, and mission replay; resolve root causes and improve software, tests, and operator workflows.
• In the first 90 days, learn operator mission workflows and trace commands, telemetry, and failure behavior across the ground station, onboard software, flight controller, sensors, and payloads.
• In the first 90 days, identify consequential reliability risks and operator pain points, deliver a meaningful improvement through simulation and integration testing into an operational release, verify it in the field, demonstrate failure responses, and improve a recurring operational or development friction point.

Benefits

• Meaningful stock options.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance for the employee and family.
• 401(k) with employer matching.
• Unlimited PTO and a generous paid holiday schedule.
• Paid parental leave for both parents.
• Daily lunch at the El Segundo headquarters.
• Relocation assistance for eligible roles.

What This Job Offers

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