Firmware Engineer - Flight Software

Cantos Ventures; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 145,500 - 204,000; Full time

Job summary

Neros builds first-person-view drones for the modern battlefield. As a Firmware Engineer on the Flight Software team, you will develop flight-critical firmware that drives aircraft flight modes, control algorithms, and vehicle-side integrations across our products.

You will see work from code to bench to flight test, with on-field operations requiring robustness and reliability. Your impact spans from sensor integration to flight-test validation, with emphasis on safety-relevant firmware, test

Qualifications

• Strong embedded C on resource-constrained microcontrollers.
• Experience with flight stacks (PX4/Betaflight) on flying vehicles.
• Ability to own a problem end-to-end with light direction.
• Experience writing unit and integration tests for firmware.

Responsibilities

• Implement flight modes and control features — position and altitude hold, and the safety and degradation behavior around them.
• Port and tune sensors and control algorithms across flight stacks (Betaflight, PX4), preserving flight feel that expert pilots depend on.
• Build vehicle-side datalink and payload integrations for new platform variants.
• Instrument the vehicle, run bench and flight-test iterations, and debug issues that only reproduce in flight.
• Write the unit and integration tests for your firmware, partnering with our Test organization on SITL/HITL and flight-test execution.

Skills

Embedded C

Flight stacks

Control theory

Debugging hardware

End-to-end ownership

Test discipline

Tools

PX4

Betaflight

MAVLink

uORB

QGroundControl

EKF2

Job description

Who we are

Neros is a defense technology company rebuilding America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture high-performance unmanned systems that are tested in combat, iterated at startup speed, and built at massive scale. Our team culture is fast, hands-on, and obsessed with closing the gap between design and deployment.

As drones transform the character of warfare, Neros is delivering the systems the West needs to compete on the modern battlefield and deter the adversaries of democracy. We’re hiring engineers, operators, and builders who want to move fast, take on extreme ownership, and get capability into the hands of warfighters in months, not years.

What you will be doing

Neros builds first-person-view drones for the modern battlefield. As a Firmware Engineer on the Flight Software team, you will build the flight-critical firmware that flies the aircraft — flight modes, control algorithms, and the vehicle-side integrations they depend on — across our entire range of products. Your work goes from code to bench to flight test, and what you ship flies in the field.

Responsibilities

• Implement flight modes and control features — position and altitude hold, and the safety and degradation behavior around them
• Port and tune sensors and control algorithms across flight stacks (Betaflight, PX4), preserving flight feel that expert pilots depend on
• Build vehicle-side datalink and payload integrations for new platform variants
• Instrument the vehicle, run bench and flight-test iterations, and debug issues that only reproduce in flight
• Write the unit and integration tests for your firmware, partnering with our Test organization on SITL/HITL and flight-test execution

You should have the following

• Strong embedded C on resource-constrained microcontrollers — you have shipped firmware that runs on real hardware in the field
• Hands-on experience with a flight stack — PX4, Betaflight, or similar — on vehicles that actually flew
• Working grasp of flight-control fundamentals: control loops, filtering, and how sensors (IMU, baro, GPS) become state estimates
• Track record of debugging hardware-coupled problems — failures that only reproduce on the bench or in flight, not in a debugger
• Able to own a problem end to end with light direction — from ambiguous goal to flying firmware
• Test discipline appropriate to safety-relevant firmware

Nice to have

• Datalink, tunneling, or networking-protocol work on embedded systems
• Betaflight internals experience — modes, RC/mixer path, or a maintained fork
• Counter-UAS, radar-guided, or interceptor-adjacent systems exposure or interest
• Estimation depth (EKF/complementary filters, sensor fusion)
• Depth in the PX4 ecosystem — MAVLink, uORB, EKF2, offboard/companion-computer integration, QGroundControl tooling
• You fly — FPV, racing, or fixed-wing RC

US Salary Range

$145,500 – $204,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Neros' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.