Senior Software Engineer (Robotics)

• As a Robot Software Engineer, your day-to-day life will vary
• Some days you might find yourself out in the field, integrating hardware and software directly onto vehicle platforms and pushing autonomy algorithms through live testing
• Other days you’ll be back in the office, deep in SIL and HIL environments, working through the complex autonomy and vehicle intelligence systems that span both hardware and software domains
• And some days you’ll be on-site with a customer, demoing what you built and troubleshooting in real time as they put it to the test
• Every day is different, and each one moves the work forward
• As a senior member of the team, you’ll also help shape how the team tackles these problems, setting technical direction, raising the bar on integration practices, and mentoring engineers as they grow into the role
• Along the way, you’ll touch whatever it takes to make the platform work, such as mission behaviours development, platform integration, navigation, and everything in between
• You’ll collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to deliver robust, scalable autonomy solutions for defense customers, drawing on computer networking, code integration, and a genuine passion for robotics
• You’ll build, test, and deploy your software, and then watch it actually fly
• Lead the technical design and architecture of autonomy solutions across one or more platforms, making key trade-off decisions independently
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to junior and mid-level engineers, reviewing designs and code to maintain high engineering standards
• Develop and adapt mission behaviour, navigation, and decision-making logic to meet the needs of diverse defense platforms and missions
• Design and implement autonomy capabilities that are modular and reusable across different vehicle types and programs
• Integrate and deploy autonomy solutions onto embedded Linux and other hardware platforms, including interfacing with sensors and collecting data
• Conduct system-level setup, testing, and validation, including software-in-the-loop (SIL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) evaluations
• Support live flight test of autonomy software on Group 1-5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• Troubleshoot complex software and integration issues to ensure high reliability and performance across the stack
• Collaborate with 3rd party UAS vendors and cross-functional teams to bring autonomy software to life on OEM and Applied hardware alike

Preferred experience

• Demonstrated experience leading technical design decisions on complex, ambiguous autonomy problems with minimal guidance
• Experience developing in Docker, containerized deployment environments, and using Linux-based operating systems (e.g., RHEL, Ubuntu)
• Experience integrating autonomy/robotics products with Pixhawk autopilots (ArduPilot and/or PX4)
• 6+ years of hands-on experience working with robotic systems (hardware, software, and integration)
• Experience with modern C++
• Experience integrating with communication busses & protocols: UART/RS232/RS422/RS485, SPI/QSPI, I2C, Ethernet
• Experience developing autonomy behavior and decision-making logic (e.g., behavior trees, state machines) and/or navigation algorithms for robotic or autonomous systems
• Excellent communication skills and a customer-oriented project delivery mindset
• BS or MS in Robotics, Computer Science, or related engineering field
• Familiarity with real-time, edge computing, and safety-critical systems operating in software-in-the-loop (SIL), hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), test & operational environments
• General willingness to travel for company business between our offices, as well as to customer sites
• Must have ability to hold UK Security Clearance (current or previous preferred)
• Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles