Senior Embedded Software Engineer - Autonomous Aircraft

Red Cat Holdings; Torrance (CA); On-site; USD 132,000 - 183,000; Full time

Job summary

FlightWave Aerospace is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop embedded software for autonomous aircraft and UAS. You will own production C/C++ software across microcontrollers and Linux-based processors, integrating sensors, and supporting ground and flight tests.

The role requires strong experience in real-time systems, kernel debugging, and cross-domain collaboration with hardware, autonomy, and flight-operations teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.
• Seven+ years of professional software development with embedded aircraft/VTOL/UAS experience.
• Advanced embedded C and modern C++ proficiency including memory behavior and concurrency.
• Production experience for microcontrollers and application processors (ARM Cortex-M/A).
• Experience with RTOS and embedded Linux, including scheduling, IPC, and debugging.
• Experience with DroneCAN/CAN, Ethernet, SPI, I2C, UART, MavLink and related protocols.
• Experience integrating sensors on resource-constrained platforms with timing and data integrity considerations.
• Experience taking software from design through bring-up, bench testing, and flight testing.
• Ability to create testable interfaces, automated tests, logs, and measurable performance criteria.
• Ability to explain decisions, lead reviews, and mentor engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, review, and maintain embedded C/C++ software for microcontrollers and edge platforms.
• Own features from requirements through test and flight-test support.
• Develop board-support, device interfaces, middleware, and application software for RTOS and embedded Linux.
• Integrate sensors and perception data with reliable data paths and time synchronization.
• Develop perception capabilities including detection, tracking, and fusion.
• Optimize performance and power while preserving deterministic behavior.
• Define secure interfaces among subsystems including perception and flight controls.
• Diagnose cross-domain issues with debuggers and logs.
• Build and maintain unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop tests.
• Analyze flight data and drive defects to root cause.
• Contribute to design reviews, coding standards, and risk analysis.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship.
• Deliver maintainable production software on target hardware.
• Support prototype and production integration and test events.

Skills

Embedded C/C++

RTOS experience

Embedded Linux

Sensor integration

Vehicle software development

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Yocto/OpenEmbedded

Docker

Git

MavLink/CAN

Job description

FlightWave Aerospace is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to develop embedded software for autonomous aircraft and UAS. You will own production C/C++ software across microcontrollers and Linux-based processors, integrating sensors, and supporting ground and flight tests.

The role requires strong experience in real-time systems, kernel debugging, and cross-domain collaboration with hardware, autonomy, and flight-operations teams.