Application Software Engineer (Staff / Senior Staff)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps.

About the role

Our partner is looking for an Application Software Engineer (Staff / Senior Staff) based in United States. This role serves as a senior technical authority shaping the architecture and evolution of mission-critical operator software across multiple unmanned aerial systems. You will define technical direction for application frameworks, mission system interfaces, visualization platforms, and operator-facing experiences. The position combines deep software engineering expertise with systems architecture, real-time data processing, and complex system integration. You will lead cross-functional initiatives spanning avionics, autonomy, guidance and navigation, testing, and operator experience. The role also provides significant influence over long-term technical roadmaps, engineering standards, and architectural investments. This is an opportunity to mentor senior engineers and contribute to highly complex, safety-critical aerospace software from a remote U.S.-based environment.

Responsibilities

• Define and guide application software architecture across multiple UAS platforms, ensuring modularity, maintainability, scalability, and long-term technical sustainability.
• Lead cross-functional technical initiatives spanning avionics, autonomy, guidance, navigation and control, test engineering, and operator experience.
• Establish system design decisions covering application frameworks, interfaces, API standards, data pipelines, and operator-facing mission software.
• Review, approve, and guide high-impact technical proposals, engineering change requests, and cross-program software integrations.
• Lead the resolution of complex system-level issues involving multiple subsystems, distributed data flows, performance constraints, and safety considerations.
• Drive long-term technical roadmap planning in collaboration with technical leadership, influencing feature priorities, capability evolution, and architectural investments.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for complex debugging, telemetry diagnostics, mission software failures, and issues identified during flight operations.
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers, strengthening technical judgment, architectural thinking, knowledge sharing, and leadership capabilities.
• Represent software engineering in customer meetings, major design reviews, executive briefings, and cross-site technical alignment discussions.
• Advocate for operator-centered design principles that prioritize mission effectiveness, reliability, usability, and intuitive workflows.
• Establish and contribute to enterprise standards covering software documentation, testing rigor, integration methodologies, and system validation.
• Support the long-term evolution of application frameworks and mission software across multiple programs and platforms.
• Collaborate with engineering and program leadership to identify technical risks and develop durable, scalable solutions.
• Contribute to engineering culture-building and continuous improvement across development practices, architecture, and technical standards.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10–15 years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven track record as a senior technical leader for large-scale, multi-program software systems.