Software Engineer - ATAS - Smyrna, GA - Open Rank

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI); Smyrna (GA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Travel opportunities

Job summary

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in Smyrna, GA is seeking a Software Engineer to design, develop, test, and maintain real-time software for distributed unmanned systems. You will work on a Ground Control Station, integrating graphics engines, mapping tech, and cross-platform interfaces to empower field operators.

The role emphasizes software engineering leadership, CI/CD practices, and collaboration across teams to deliver reliable, scalable control systems for autonomous robotics.

Qualifications

• Currently open-rank, applicable to candidates with a degree in CS/Engineering and relevant project experience.
• Experience in modern backend languages including C++ and C#.
• Interest in UI/UX and distributed systems with strong communication skills.
• Familiarity with geospatial tools, C2 systems, and 3D graphics pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Perform software development, debugging, modification, and documentation.
• Design, test, and develop software to meet program requirements.
• Develop and maintain kernel and user-level software and scripts.
• Contribute to reports, proposals, and technical documentation.
• Create and analyze network protocols.

Skills

Java

JavaScript

C++

C#

Python

Scala

Groovy

Education

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

Master's degree in related field

Ph.D. in related field

Tools

Geospatial Engines (ArcGIS, Cesium, OpenSceneGraph)

gRPC/Protobuf

OpenGL/DirectX

Unreal/Unity

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Overview

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,900 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $940 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry.GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

Georgia Tech's Mission and Values

Georgia Tech's mission is to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute has nine key values that are foundational to everything we do:

• 1. Students are our top priority.
• 2. We strive for excellence.
• 3. We thrive on diversity.
• 4. We celebrate collaboration.
• 5. We champion innovation.
• 6. We safeguard freedom of inquiry and expression.
• 7. We nurture the wellbeing of our community.
• 8. We act ethically.
• 9. We are responsible stewards.

Over the next decade, Georgia Tech will become an example of inclusive innovation, a leading technological research university of unmatched scale, relentlessly committed to serving the public good; breaking new ground in addressing the biggest local, national, and global challenges and opportunities of our time; making technology broadly accessible; and developing exceptional, principled leaders from all backgrounds ready to produce novel ideas and create solutions with real human impact.

Project/Unit Description

The GTRI Robotics and Autonomous Systems Division (RASD) is a growing division focused on robotics and collaborative, autonomous systems. RASD is looking for skilled software engineers to build and develop a Ground Control Station (GCS) Command and Control (C2) system for large, distributed, real-time unmanned systems. You will contribute to the design and implementation of control and interface systems used by field operators. Your work will span multiple technical domains as you identify user needs and develop solutions to improve reliability, scalability, and ease of use. You work will focus on the use and integration of graphics engines, mapping engines, UI/UX specifically for the unmanned robotics C2 domain, messaging libraries and integration, and supporting features and development across various operating systems. Ideal candidates are self-motivated, collaborative-problem solvers who find satisfaction in creating tools that amplify the effectiveness of other engineers.

Job Purpose

The Software Engineer designs, develops, and tests software applications and products. Additionally, the Software Engineer manages software development teams, provides technical leadership, and establishes software development lifecycle practices and processes. The Software Engineer is proficient in programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, C, C++, C#, Ruby, Python, Scala, and Groovy. In this role, the Software Engineer requires extensive knowledge of programming languages, software development, computer operating systems, Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), DevOps, Application Programming Interface (API) development, container development, and distributed systems. The Software Engineer also applies engineering principles to software creation, manages production releases of software, performs code reviews, merges feature development branches, and analyzes and triages issues. The necessary skill areas for the Software Engineer include programming and coding, fundamentals of computer science, software design and architecture development, algorithms and data structures, information analysis, software debugging and testing, and working on development teams. The Software Engineer also works with sponsors to curate requirements, define sprint work items, set priorities for work backlogs, and organize development teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform software development, debugging, modification, enhancement, and documentation.
• Design, test, and develop computer software in order to meet program requirements.
• Develop and maintain kernel and user-level software and scripts.
• Contribute to research reports, presentations, white papers, and competitive proposals.
• Create and analyze network protocols.

Additional Responsibilities

• Design, build, test, deploy, and maintain tooling that helps increase engineering development velocity and product quality.
• Proactively identify user pain points and opportunities to improve our infrastructure and tooling.
• Work across the stack (front-end, back-end, build, CI/CD).
• Work within the current software stack, understand how it works, identify and fix bugs as well as implement new features as needed.
• Work on refactoring and writing new software for the front end and back-end components, toward improved implementations of the current and future ideas.
• Implement a cohesive mapping, 2D, and 3D interface, for mobile robots, specifically using a standard mapping engine and formats, and standard graphical engines in support of required autonomy behaviors.
• Design and implement new custom UI/UX design to improve the ability of operators to command robot swarms and understand the current state of those robots.
• Implement C2 which interfaces the graphical interface with the robots themselves through custom messaging protocols.
• Design, develop, and implement cross platform systems and interfaces.
• Collaborate across diverse teams, with differing goals and objectives, to unify the design and architecture for efficient development.

Required Minimum Qualifications

• Candidates currently enrolled in an accredited degree program relevant to this position will be considered. The candidate must have a graduation date of no later than December 2026.
• Experience in modern backend programming languages such as C++ and C#.
• Interest in UI/UX design.
• Experience with one or more of the following:
  • Experience with Geospatial Engines, GIS Tools, such as ArcGIS, Cesium, OpenSceneGraph, or related tools.
  • Experience with autonomous systems, computational robotics algorithms, and/or interfaces and C2.
  • Experience with UI/UX design, for gaming and/or operational interfaces.
  • Experience with gRPC/Protobuf or similar messaging frameworks.
  • Experience with 3D graphics/rendering pipelines, such as OpenGL/DirectX, and through engines such as UnReal or Unity, leveraging available hardware effectively.

• Related skills such as computational geometry, computer vision, or related disciplines, to assist algorithms toward effective rendering of complex robot agent behaviors and goals to an operator.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Familiarity with algorithms, data structures, automated testing, and other technical tools.
• Comfort working independently with limited oversight.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active Secret Clearance.
• Experience developing C2 applications for distributed systems.
• Experience leading a small team of developers.
• Experience with multiple items listed in the above section.
• Experience maintaining continuous integration systems.
• Experience leading the design, development, testing, and documentation of Command and Control (C2) systems for distributed mobile systems.
• Experience serving as a subject matter expert for software architectural framework, methodologies, and tools.
• Experience mentoring and guiding fellow engineers on engineering best practices.

Travel Requirements

• 10% - 25% travel.

Education and Length of Experience

This position vacancy is an open-rank announcement. The final job offer will be dependent on candidate qualifications in alignment with Research Faculty Extension Professional ranks as outlined in section 3.2.1 of the Georgia Tech Faculty Handbook

• 2-9 years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or any related field.
• 0-7 years of related experience with a Masters' degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or any related field.
• 0-4 years of related experience with a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or any related field.

Please refer to our Research Faculty Technical Level Guidelines for minimum requirements at the higher levels.

U.S. Citizenship Requirements

Due to our research contracts with the U.S. federal government, candidates for this position must be U.S. Citizens.

Clearance Type Required

Candidates must be able to obtain and maintain an active security clearance.

<