Lead Software Engineer - Embedded & Aircraft Systems

Manna; Dublin; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Manna in Dublin is seeking a Lead Software Engineer for the Aircraft team to drive the technical strategy for onboard and embedded aircraft systems. You will set long-term architecture direction, lead high-stakes multi-project delivery, and mentor senior engineers across the software organisation.

This role blends deep embedded/robotics work with system-level leadership, shaping standards and teams while ensuring safety-critical delivery.

Qualifications

• 8–12+ years of professional software engineering experience in embedded, robotics, or safety-critical systems.
• Deep expertise in C++ and Embedded C/C++; strong systems-level Python experience beneficial.
• Track record defining architecture across complex, hardware-adjacent software environments.
• Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple complex projects, including setting architecture direction and owning delivery outcomes.
• Experience working in safety-critical domains such as aviation, aerospace, robotics, automotive, or industrial systems.
• Strong debugging instincts across software hardware boundaries.
• History of mentoring senior engineers; people-management, growing technical capability across teams.
• Experience leading design reviews, risk assessments, and incident learnings in high-reliability environments.
• Experience with autonomy, avionics, drones, robotics, or real-time control systems.
• Familiarity with flight stacks (ArduPilot/PX4), ROS/ROS2, or equivalent embedded platforms.
• Experience with power systems, battery management, charging firmware, or similar hardware-integrated domains.
• Background in safety cases or reliability engineering for operational systems.

Responsibilities

• Define the architecture for aircraft onboard software and supporting firmware.
• Set standards for reliability, performance, and scalability across aircraft systems.
• Contribute to architectural decisions that span multiple teams (e.g., Aircraft Airspace QA).
• Lead design reviews for critical components, ensuring high-confidence deployment in safety-critical environments.
• Ensure roadmap execution while balancing near-term operational needs with long-term system health.
• Own risk management, rollout strategy, incident learnings, and continuous improvement for aircraft software.
• Partner closely with Hardware, Autonomy, Operations, and Aviation stakeholders.
• Mentor senior engineers and grow technical leadership depth on the team.
• Provide day-to-day technical leadership and coaching to software engineers.
• Support hiring and onboarding to grow team capacity.

Skills

C++

Embedded C/C++

Robotics

Safety-critical

System architecture

Leadership

Debugging

ROS/ROS2

Autonomy

Power/battery

Tools

ROS/ROS2

ArduPilot/PX4

Embedded platforms

Job description

Manna in Dublin is seeking a Lead Software Engineer for the Aircraft team to drive the technical strategy for onboard and embedded aircraft systems. You will set long-term architecture direction, lead high-stakes multi-project delivery, and mentor senior engineers across the software organisation.

This role blends deep embedded/robotics work with system-level leadership, shaping standards and teams while ensuring safety-critical delivery.