Embedded Flight Software Engineer — Real-Time GNC

Thermopylae Aerospace; Hawthorne (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Thermopylae Aerospace Corporation seeks an Embedded Software Engineer to build and optimize the embedded stack for our guidance systems. You will implement GNC algorithms on constrained hardware, integrate external sensors, and move flight software from prototype to production-ready code.

Collaborating with GNC, Electrical, and Mechanical teams, you will work at the intersection of real-time software, control theory, and hardware.

Qualifications

• 3+ years hands-on embedded software development experience.
• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for bare-metal or RTOS environments.
• Experience developing and debugging software on microcontrollers and constrained compute platforms.
• Solid fundamentals in control systems, numerical methods, and sensor fusion.
• Hands-on experience integrating sensors and working across hardware–software boundary.
• Ability to profile, optimize, and debug performance-critical code.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, ambiguous early-stage environment with high ownership and a bias to action.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate closely with GNC and hardware engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and debug the embedded software stack for guidance and flight control systems.
• Implement, optimize, and validate GNC algorithms on resource-constrained microcontrollers and processors.
• Integrate and calibrate external sensors (IMUs, GNSS, magnetometers, optical, RF, and others) into the flight software.
• Develop and maintain real-time, deterministic software with a focus on reliability, latency, and computational efficiency.
• Prototype, test, and iterate rapidly on hardware, including bring-up, debugging, and flight testing support.
• Collaborate closely with GNC engineers to translate algorithms into efficient, robust embedded implementations.
• Support system-level integration, blackbox analysis, and continuous improvement of the flight software stack.
• Contribute to software architecture decisions that enable future scalability and maintainability.

Skills

Embedded software

C/C++

Real-time systems

Sensor fusion

Debugging

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's/MS/PhD in CS/EE/Aerospace or equiv.

Tools

RTOS

Microcontrollers

Bare-metal

Job description

Thermopylae Aerospace Corporation seeks an Embedded Software Engineer to build and optimize the embedded stack for our guidance systems. You will implement GNC algorithms on constrained hardware, integrate external sensors, and move flight software from prototype to production-ready code.

Collaborating with GNC, Electrical, and Mechanical teams, you will work at the intersection of real-time software, control theory, and hardware.