Senior Field Software Engineer, Advanced Missions Group
Senior field software engineer at drone maker Performance Drone Works who rapidly prototypes and deploys mission software for UAS platforms, integrating third-party sensors, payloads, comms, and vendor systems with C++, Python, and Linux. Requires ~50% travel to customer sites, U.S. citizenship, and Secret clearance eligibility.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Remote (United States)
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 5+ years of professional software development, systems integration, field engineering, or equivalent hands-on technical experience
- Demonstrated ability to rapidly prototype, debug, and deploy software in ambiguous, time-constrained environments
- Strong software development experience in C++ and Python, or equivalent systems-oriented and scripting languages
- Strong working knowledge of Linux-based development and deployment, command-line tools, process/service management, logs, permissions, and networking
- Familiarity with UAS and robotics interfaces or ecosystems such as MAVLink, ROS 2, DDS, TAK or ATAK, and Cursor on Target
- Experience integrating third-party systems through APIs, SDKs, libraries, network protocols, serial interfaces, or vendor-provided tools
- Practical knowledge of TCP/IP networking, including TCP/UDP, routing, addressing, ports, and packet-level troubleshooting
- Ability to diagnose problems across application, operating-system, network, and hardware boundaries using incomplete information
- Strong written and verbal communication skills for working with operators, customers, partners, and internal teams
- Ability to work independently in field environments while maintaining alignment and configuration control
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience
- U.S. Citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance or higher
- Ability and willingness to travel up to 50% for customer engagements, demonstrations, exercises, and field testing
Nice to have
- Experience with Qt and QML, Android development, or cross-platform operator applications
- Working knowledge of embedded Linux, cross-compilation, device interfaces, or hardware-in-the-loop testing
- Experience integrating sensors, payloads, video or telemetry systems, tactical radios, or edge-compute devices
- Experience using containers, continuous integration tools, automated testing, or infrastructure for repeatable field deployments
Full description
Now, we’re entering a new phase of growth and are looking for a Senior Field Software Engineer to join the Advanced Mission Group (AMG). This role works directly with operators, customers, internal engineering teams, and industry partners to turn rapidly changing mission needs into working software capabilities in the field.
The ideal candidate is a pragmatic software builder and systems integrator who is comfortable starting with an incomplete requirement, asking the right questions, and producing a mission-relevant proof of concept in days or weeks rather than months. Early solutions do not need production-level polish, but they must be reliable within defined test conditions, safe to evaluate, clearly documented, and useful for deciding what PDW should build next.
This position requires strong judgment, technical breadth, and the ability to work independently in field-forward environments. The engineer will routinely integrate third-party sensors, payloads, communications systems, mission applications, and vendor software with PDW platforms, often with limited documentation and compressed timelines.
What You’ll Do
- Work directly with operators and customers during discovery sessions, demonstrations, exercises, and field tests to understand mission problems and identify the smallest useful software solution.
- Translate ambiguous or rapidly changing operational needs into clear software behaviors, interface requirements, test criteria, and short execution plans.
- Design, build, modify, and deploy proof-of-concept software, scripts, middleware, interface adapters, data pipelines, and operator workflows that validate new mission capabilities.
- Integrate third-party hardware and software, including payloads, sensors, communications systems, command-and-control tools, and vendor applications, using available APIs, SDKs, protocols, and data formats.
- Troubleshoot across the full system in real time, including application behavior, Linux environments, network connectivity, configuration, logs, timing, data exchange, and hardware-software interfaces.
- Make disciplined tradeoffs between speed, reliability, safety, and technical debt; define the operating limits of prototypes and avoid introducing unvalidated changes into safety-critical flight functions.
- Conduct rapid test and iteration cycles with operators, capture feedback, and adjust software at the point of need when mission conditions or customer priorities change.
- Create lightweight test tools, simulators, deployment packages, and repeatable development environments that make integrations easier to reproduce and demonstrate.
- Document interfaces, assumptions, dependencies, known limitations, test results, and recommended next steps so successful prototypes can transition to product engineering.
- Partner closely with AMG Solutions Engineering, Product, Autonomy, Embedded Software, Flight Operations, Mission Systems, and Go-to-Market teams.