Principal Engineer, Ground System Software

Responsibilities

• Develop solutions for real-time mission-computing systems supporting autonomous aircraft with sensors and weapons.
• Define and maintain end-to-end software architecture across mission applications, platform services, middleware, operating-system interfaces, hardware-abstraction layers, networking, data distribution, component boundaries, and APIs.
• Architect deterministic real-time performance, addressing scheduling, latency, jitter, synchronization, throughput, resource utilization, distributed processing, and CPU/GPU/accelerator allocation.
• Produce architecture views, interface definitions, data-flow and deployment models, sequence and timing diagrams, resource budgets, trade studies, and technical decision records.
• Integrate sensors, effectors, communications, navigation, autonomy, mission management, command-and-control, data processing, and vehicle services with cross-functional engineering teams.
• Design for fault detection and isolation, redundancy, graceful degradation, recovery, health monitoring, cybersecurity, airworthiness, certification, and requirements traceability.
• Establish practices for concurrency, synchronization, memory and resource management, deterministic execution, interface control, configuration management, and component integration.
• Define and execute verification strategies across hardware-in-the-loop and software-in-the-loop laboratories, simulations, test benches, flight-test environments, and deployed systems.
• Maintain technical ownership throughout the lifecycle by evaluating technologies and supplier designs, analyzing performance, managing technical debt, planning modernization, promoting reuse, and communicating architectural decisions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of professional software-engineering experience, including 3+ years in software architecture, systems architecture, or technical leadership.
• Experience developing embedded, distributed, real-time, safety-critical, or mission-critical software systems.
• Proficiency in C, C++, Rust, or another strongly typed systems-programming language.
• Strong understanding of real-time software principles, including scheduling, concurrency, synchronization, latency, jitter, memory management, and deterministic execution.
• Experience with embedded operating systems or RTOSs, middleware, interprocess communication, networking, and data-distribution technologies.
• Experience defining software architectures, APIs, interface-control documents, data flows, deployment models, and system resource budgets.
• Experience integrating software with hardware, sensors, communications, navigation, effectors, or other mission-system components.
• Experience supporting software through requirements development, design reviews, implementation, integration, verification, system test, and deployment.
• Working knowledge of systems-engineering processes, requirements management, traceability, configuration management, and verification and validation.
• Ability to analyze performance using instrumentation, telemetry, traces, profiling, network captures, timing data, and resource-utilization measurements.
• Strong cross-functional technical leadership, problem-solving, written communication, and presentation skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Department of Defense security clearance; U.S. citizenship may be required for clearance eligibility.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with autonomous aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, avionics, mission computers, robotics, or aerospace and defense platforms.
• Experience with A-GRA, AMS-GRA, OMS, UCI, FACE, or other government reference architectures and open-mission-system standards.
• Familiarity with DO-178C, DO-254, ARP4754A, or applicable military airworthiness guidance.
• Experience with CPU-, GPU-, FPGA-, or accelerator-based heterogeneous computing architectures.
• Experience with publish/subscribe middleware, quality-of-service controls, high-rate data distribution, precision timing, and distributed time synchronization.
• Experience designing cybersecurity controls for embedded or mission systems.
• Experience with HIL/SIL environments, simulation systems, laboratory integration, flight testing, or operational deployment.
• Experience evaluating supplier designs, RTOSs, middleware, computing platforms, or third-party software.
• Active or previously held U.S. Department of Defense Secret clearance.

Compensation

• Annual salary: $125,000–$230,000.