Senior Software Engineer
Technology Innovation Institute Senior Software Engineer
Role Overview
As an experienced Senior SW Engineer with expertise in Qualcomm-based Mission Computer systems, your leading role will be in designing, implementing, and maintaining software solutions across NXP-based PX4 flight controllers and Qualcomm-based mission computers. You will optimize solutions for reliability, safety, and performance in complex UAV operations.
Industry / Domain
Autonomous Systems / Robotics / Defense UxV / Secure Computing
Functional Activities
Autonomy Software Development:
- Own the architecture, design, and implementation of autonomous applications on Qualcomm-based platforms, spanning perception, sensor fusion, planning, and navigation for UxV systems.
- Define technical direction and oversee development of ROS2-based nodes and middleware frameworks to support scalable, modular autonomy stacks across heterogeneous compute platforms.
- Drive optimization strategies for GPU and DSP-accelerated AI/ML workloads, ensuring real-time inference, multi-sensor fusion, and deterministic decision-making under SWaP constraints.
Qualcomm-based SOC Misison Computer:
- Understanding of Qualcomm IQ9-based secure boot implementation, including boot chain validation, trusted firmware stages, secure bootloader handoff, image authentication, and production boot-lock enforcement.
- Hands-on awareness of platform security features such as hardware root of trust, key provisioning, device identity, secure storage, encryption services, anti-rollback protection, and secure debug control.
- Understanding of fuse programming / fuse burning processes for production devices, including root-of-trust hash provisioning, lifecycle state transition, OEM lock state, and secure manufacturing controls.
- Ability to support secure platform bring-up, validation, and troubleshooting across boot, encryption, provisioning, OTA update, and manufacturing test workflow.
System Integration and Middleware:
- Implement secure communication bridges between autonomy stack, flight controller, and ground systems.
- Develop tools and APIs for efficient data exchange across mission-critical components.
- Support multi-sensor integration (camera, LiDAR, GNSS, IMU) with ROS2 middleware.
Security and Reliability:
- Architect and enforce end-to-end security frameworks for UxV platforms, covering secure boot, hardware root of trust (RoT), and chain-of-trust provisioning on Qualcomm SoCs.
- Implement identity management and access control for mission software deployments.
- Conduct threat modeling, vulnerability assessments, and apply secure coding practices (ISO 27001, DO-326A).
- In charge of threat modeling and attack surface analysis for autonomous UxV systems, addressing vulnerabilities across communication links (RF, GNSS, MAVLink/DDS), compute nodes, and sensor interfaces.
Engineering Process Optimization:
- Implement telemetry, logging, and diagnostics for real-time system monitoring.
- Define and enforce SDLC best practices, coding guidelines, and documentation standards for the autonomy stack.
- Define KPIs (deployment cycle time, test coverage, system uptime, security incidents) to track engineering efficiency.
Necessary Knowledge and Experience
- 8+ years of experience in robotics, autonomous systems, or safety-critical UxV platform development, preferably in defense or aerospace environments.
- Proficiency in real-time embedded systems and Python for automation, AI/ML workflows, testing, and data pipelines.
- Strong experience with ROS2, XRCE-DDS, MAVLink, and modular autonomy stack architecture on Qualcomm-based mission computer platforms.
- Hands-on experience with Qualcomm SoC platform bring-up, including BSP integration, Linux/Yocto environments, boot chain validation, peripheral enablement, driver integration, and platform debugging.
- Understanding of Qualcomm security features, including secure boot, hardware root of trust, TEE, key provisioning, encrypted storage, anti-rollback, secure debug control, and lifecycle-state enforcement.
- Experience with production security workflows, including fuse burning, root-of-trust provisioning, device identity, factory flashing, secure provisioning, and manufacturing test procedures.
- Hands-on experience with GPU, DSP, NPU, or AI accelerator-based workloads for sensor fusion, real-time inference, and SWaP-constrained AI/ML deployment.
- Experience implementing embedded cybersecurity measures, including encrypted communications, sandboxing, access control, threat modeling, secure OTA, and secure coding practices.
- Familiarity with ISO 27001, DO-326A, DevOps/CI/CD, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, automated testing, and cross-functional integration.
- Strong English communication skills and ability to work with software, hardware, security, manufacturing, QA, and systems teams under pressure.
Education and Certification Requirements
- MSc preferred / BSc (minimum) in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
- Nice-to-have: familiarity with TypeScript/JavaScript for front-end interfaces and control dashboards; experience with cross-organization system integration at scale.