Staff Software Engineer, Autonomy

Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results.

The team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

About the Role

We've built an autonomy stack that already runs on real programs and real hardware, and we designed it to be platform-agnostic from the start. The next step is the one that matters most: scaling it onto our own aircraft to field the largest drone swarm in the world. We're looking for a Software Engineer, Autonomy to own that stack and lead the work.

This is a high-leverage technical role. You'll own the architectural direction for the perception, planning, and control systems running onboard every vehicle in the swarm, and you'll raise the bar for the autonomy engineers building around you.

What You'll Do

• Own and evolve our autonomy stack, extending proven robotic foundations with agentic AI for onboard reasoning, adaptation, and swarm coordination at scale.
• Harden and extend the inter-robot and C2 communication protocols behind tactical swarm decision making on the edge, including under degraded and contested comms.
• Revisit and defend the hard technical tradeoffs as we move to aircraft and scale: onboard vs. offboard compute, centralized vs. distributed decision making, determinism vs. adaptability. Some of our current answers carry over. Some won't survive the move to airborne compute and contested comms. You'll decide which.
• Take autonomy capability from integration and test into fielded operation, and close the loop from test data back into the stack.
• Mentor and technically guide a growing team of robotics engineers.
• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code, and set the standard for what good looks like.
• Travel up to 25% of the time for onsite test and integration events.
• Basic Qualifications
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field.
• 3+ years building soft-real-time embedded systems.
• Deep expertise in at least one systems language (Golang, Rust, or C/C++).
• Proven experience deploying and validating robotics algorithms (Dubins planning, SLAM, Kalman filters, particle filters, A*, behavior trees, reinforcement learning, etc.).
• Working knowledge of embedded systems (SPI/I2C/serial protocols, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, microcontroller programming).
• Strong networking fundamentals (NAT, mDNS, UDP/TCP, multicast, firewall configuration).
• Excellent software engineering practices with emphasis on testable, reliable code.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with perception systems, sensor fusion, or multi-target tracking (Kalman-based trackers, JPDA, MHT, or similar).
• Contributions to deployed robotics or IoT systems requiring complex edge processing (aerospace, autonomous vehicles, etc.).
• Experience with robotics middleware (DDS/ROS2, ZeroMQ, gRPC) and serialization formats (Protobuf).
• Familiarity with government UxS interoperability standards (OMS/UCI, STANAG 4586, FACE).
• Hands-on electronics skills (breadboarding, soldering, schematic interpretation, datasheet analysis).
• Deep learning experience.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance. Active Secret clearance preferred but not required.
• ITAR requirement
• To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.
• Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.

What We Offer

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company
• Competitive base salary commensurate with experience
• Medical, dental, vision, and 401k
• PTO and paid sick leave
• Monthly wellness stipend
• Daily catered lunch (office)
• Paid parental leave
• Direct impact on a critical national security mission
• A world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems