Senior Engineering Manager (Middleware)

Skydio; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Skydio seeks a hands-on software engineering manager to lead a small, high-impact team bridging hardware, autonomy, and software platforms. You will own the team\'s roadmap, drive architectural reviews, and stay close to code while developing engineers across all levels.

You will design and deliver on-device software systems, collaborate with Computer Vision, State Estimation, Fleet Management, and Embedded teams, and build tooling for reliability and scalability in resource-constrained

Qualifications

• 3+ years of direct people management experience.
• Hands-on manager who writes/reads code.
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proficient in Python and/or C++ in a Linux environment.
• Experience designing features for OS in resource-constrained environments.
• Strong stakeholder management across organizational boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Lead, grow, and retain a team of software engineers.
• Own the team\'s roadmap and delivery; set technical direction.
• Stay hands-on; design and implement high-quality software systems.
• Build analytics tools to monitor services and improve customer experience.
• Coordinate cross-team projects with Computer Vision, State Estimation, Fleet, Embedded and Product teams.
• Recruit and hire; build interview loops and attract top talent.

Skills

Python

C++

Linux

Hands-on management

Team leadership

Stakeholder management

System design

Job description

• The middleware team sits in between the hardware platform and the autonomy stack and develops abstractions that are used by many of the layers that are higher up in the stack, including customer facing features
• The team is small but with a broad impact: we design on-device services for all our drone platforms (X10, R10, F10) and their hardware configurations (Dock, External Radio and Controllers)
• Some of the features that we work on are:
• Over The Air Updates
• Inter Process Communication
• Media and Log Management
• Performance of code and systems on the aircraft
• Time Synchronization
• Aircraft Attachments
• Navigation Cameras Streaming Pipeline
• Automated Test Infrastructure
• This is a highly impactful team where ownership matters. We work closely with other engineers across the company including Computer Vision, State Estimation, Fleet Management, and Embedded
• We’re looking for a hands-on manager — someone who leads a small team, stays close to the code, and is as comfortable in a design review as in a career conversation
• Lead, grow, and retain a team of software engineers — running 1:1s, setting expectations, giving direct feedback, and developing engineers at every level
• Own the team’s roadmap and delivery: set technical direction, break down ambiguous problems, and make the tradeoffs that keep the team shipping reliably
• Stay hands-on. Design and implement high-quality software systems that run on our hardware products and developer workstations, and remain a credible technical voice in reviews and architecture decisions
• Build analytics tools that help us monitor services and identify, architect, and implement projects that ensure smooth customer experiences, operating at a high state of reliability
• Identify and lead internal cross-team software projects that substantially improve the customer (internal and external) experience
• Take ownership of internal services from concept through deployment and monitoring
• Partner with Computer Vision, State Estimation, Fleet Management, Embedded and Product teams to align priorities and unblock work across organizational boundaries
• Recruit and hire — build the interview loop, sell candidates on the mission, and raise the bar with every addition to the team

You are experienced in designing features for operating systems that run in resource constrained environments (compute and memory)You are excited to work on and with modern cutting-edge robotic systems3+ years of direct people management experience — you’ve owned headcount, performance, and career growth for a team of engineersYou thrive in a fast-moving, process-light environment. You bring your own structure where it’s needed, tolerate ambiguity, and optimize for impact over ceremonyYou have experience coordinating and leading improvements to systems with significant organizational usage and impactYou’re a hands-on manager. You still read and write code, and you’d be uncomfortable leading a team whose work you couldn’t do yourselfYou enjoy designing and making powerful tools that are used by other engineersYou are highly proficient in Python and/or C++, implementing features in a Linux environmentYou’ve built software for systems with complex hardware in the loop — humanoid robots, unmanned vehicles, manufacturing / warehouse robots, drones, medical devices, IoT devices or similar — and you understand what changes when the bits have to move something physical8+ years of professional software engineering experienceYou is comfortable navigating and delivering within a complex codebaseYou’re strong at stakeholder management. You keep partner teams and leadership informed, negotiate priorities and tradeoffs across organizational boundaries, and build the trust that gets your team unblocked