UAV Simulation Engineer | C++ Flight Dynamics & Testing

Minerva; Worcester (MA); On-site; USD 60,000 - 86,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Share options vesting over three years

Bupa private medical insurance

6% employer pension contribution

25 days leave plus bank holidays

Enhanced mat/pat leave

Enterprise level AI tooling

Relocation support/home office budget

Job summary

Minerva Defence is seeking a mid-level software engineer to develop and maintain a C++ simulation platform used for UAV testing and operator training. You will implement scalable models, integrate multi-system software, and contribute to automated testing and CI/CD processes.

The role suits engineers with practical C++ experience who want to grow in simulation, with opportunities to work across flight control, autonomy and sensor modelling in a UK security-clearance environment.

Qualifications

• Proven experience developing, debugging and maintaining modern C++ software.
• Working knowledge of Python for scripting and data analysis.
• Experience with version control, automated tests and CI/CD workflows.
• Willingness to participate in flight tests and gather validation data.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the C++ simulation application and the features used by engineers, trainers and operators.
• Improve the simulation's performance, reliability and usability for developers, trainers and operators.
• Integrate flight control, autonomy, communications and ground control software, and investigate faults that emerge when these systems run together.
• Implement and improve vehicle and sensor models, working with aircraft and control-system engineers to understand their assumptions and validate their behaviour against measured flight data.
• Build repeatable simulation scenarios, automate headless runs and results reporting in CI/CD, and turn recorded flights and reported faults into regression tests.
• Contribute to areas such as networked multi-vehicle simulation, realistic virtual environments and synthetic sensor data.
• Take part in flight testing to gather validation data, understand how the real system behaves and use what you learn to improve the simulation.

Skills

C++ development

Python scripting

Version control

Automated tests / CI/CD

Simulation / modelling

Cross-functional collaboration

Linux

Tools

Git

Job description

Minerva Defence is seeking a mid-level software engineer to develop and maintain a C++ simulation platform used for UAV testing and operator training. You will implement scalable models, integrate multi-system software, and contribute to automated testing and CI/CD processes.

The role suits engineers with practical C++ experience who want to grow in simulation, with opportunities to work across flight control, autonomy and sensor modelling in a UK security-clearance environment.