Senior Embedded Platform Engineer - OTA & Fleet Telemetry

GCS Recruitment; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

GCS Recruitment Specialists is seeking a senior software engineer for a hands-on role at the platform/middleware layer. You will design, build, integrate, and ship core platform modules across cabin network management, OTA updates, telemetry, and device-to-cloud pipelines in a multi-domain environment.

You will lead architectural discussions, own design decisions, and contribute to interfaces while writing robust Linux-based C/C++ and Python code.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of professional software development experience.
• Strong Linux-based development on real devices (C/C++ and/or Python).
• Solid networking fundamentals and OTA experience.
• Experience with device-to-cloud telemetry and fleet management.
• Experience building or operating OTA/firmware pipelines.
• Familiarity with containers and modern CI/testing.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core platform modules: cabin network management, VLAN-based traffic segmentation, QoS.
• Build and maintain OTA software lifecycle pipeline: cryptographic updates, staged activation, rollback, and reporting.
• Develop telemetry and health-monitoring infrastructure, device-to-cloud data pipeline.
• Integrate software across cabin hardware platforms with hardware abstraction layers.
• Build and execute unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop tests.
• Contribute to interface definitions and architecture decisions, conduct code reviews.

Skills

Senior architect

Linux C/C++

Python

Networking basics

OTA pipelines

CI/CD

Docker/Kubernetes

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI tooling

Job description

The Role

This is a hands-on senior engineering role at the platform/middleware layer. The high-level architecture is in place - your job is to build, integrate, and ship against it. You will work in a team that blends avionics, enterprise networking, cloud, and embedded backgrounds, with a dedicated security engineering team supporting the platform. Modern AI-assisted development tooling is used extensively.

What you'll do:

• Design and implement core platform modules - cabin network management (VLAN-based traffic segmentation and prioritization across passenger, crew, and airline operational services), connectivity monitoring, and observability.

• Build and maintain the over-the-air (OTA) software lifecycle pipeline: cryptographically validated updates, staged activation, automatic rollback, and version reporting to ground-side fleet systems.

• Develop telemetry and health-monitoring infrastructure, including the device-to-cloud data pipeline for fleet monitoring.

• Integrate software across multiple cabin hardware platforms, maintaining hardware abstraction layers for portability.

• Build and execute unit, integration, requirements-based, and hardware-in-the-loop tests.

• Contribute to interface definitions and architecture decision records, and raise the bar through code reviews and design feedback.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 6+ years of professional software development experience, with several years leading design or architecture of production systems.

• Strong Linux-based software development on real devices - C/C++ and/or Python.

• Solid networking fundamentals: VLANs, routing, QoS / traffic prioritization, and network troubleshooting.

• Experience with device-to-cloud systems: telemetry, health monitoring, or fleet/device management.

• Experience building or operating software update pipelines (OTA/firmware: signing, staged rollout, rollback).

• Containers (Docker; Kubernetes a plus) and modern CI/testing practices.

• Comfort with ambiguity and autonomy - an early-stage program where strong engineering judgment and clear documentation matter as much as implementation skill.

Nice to have:

• Background in in-flight connectivity, satellite communications, avionics, or other safety-adjacent embedded domains.

• Familiarity with DO-178C software lifecycle (certification itself not required) or avionics interfaces such as ARINC 429.

• Security engineering exposure: cryptography, secure boot, threat modeling, identity and access controls.

• Experience with carrier-grade CPE/gateway software (e.g., RDK, OpenWrt, prpl) - this maps directly to the work.

GCS is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.