Senior Rust Engineer for Drone Autonomy & AI Platforms

Apera; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Apera in Washington, DC, is seeking a founding member for its Software Engineering team to build and deploy a drone platform driven by AI. You will design and implement Rust services powering autonomy, while collaborating with AI/ML teams to embed autonomy into core systems.

The role covers end-to-end development across the stack, including network protocols, simulation-based testing, and integration with ML pipelines.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in a relevant software field.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proficiency in Rust with willingness to work in Rust-first environment.
• Experience with distributed systems and restricted network environments.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Rust services across autonomy platforms.
• Collaborate with AI/ML teams to integrate autonomy into systems.
• Work across the stack from network/protocol to applications.
• Use simulation environments to test software.

Skills

Rust

C++

Distributed systems

Embedded systems

Python (AI/ML)

Education

Bachelor's degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field

Job description

Apera in Washington, DC, is seeking a founding member for its Software Engineering team to build and deploy a drone platform driven by AI. You will design and implement Rust services powering autonomy, while collaborating with AI/ML teams to embed autonomy into core systems.

The role covers end-to-end development across the stack, including network protocols, simulation-based testing, and integration with ML pipelines.