Senior Flight Software Engineer

About the Role

SiFly is seeking a Senior Flight Software Engineer to help extend the autonomy, performance, and safety of our long-endurance UAV platform. This role is focused on hands-on development inside PX4 and our custom avionics stack, with direct ownership of flight-critical software, sensor and payload integration, and real-world validation through simulation, bench testing, and flight tests.

You will work across controls, embedded software, and system integration to deliver robust flight behavior on a production vehicle. This is a high-ownership role for someone who is comfortable moving between code, logs, hardware, and live aircraft, and who can make sound engineering decisions in a fast-moving development environment.

What You’ll Do
• Develop, modify, and improve flight-control behaviors, failsafes, mission logic, mode logic, and setpoint handling within PX4.
• Implement and extend PX4 modules, drivers, and middleware for sensors, payloads, and onboard peripherals.
• Work directly with PX4 communication and messaging layers including uORB and MAVLink.
• Integrate flight software with onboard computers, payload systems, and external avionics components.
• Own end-to-end integration and validation of new flight features across simulation, bench testing, and flight testing.
• Analyze flight logs and sensor data using Python and other tooling to verify behavior, tune performance, and diagnose edge cases.
• Participate directly in flight tests, including test preparation, data collection, debugging, and post-flight analysis.
• Work closely with avionics, hardware, autonomy, and payload teams to bring up and validate complete vehicle functionality.
• Help improve development workflows, configuration management, test infrastructure, and diagnostic tooling for deployment and field operations.
• Contribute to technical direction and engineering discussions around flight architecture, safety, and system-level tradeoffs.

What We’re Looking For
• Strong hands-on PX4 development experience is required.
• Strong experience with MAVLink is required.
• Practical experience working with PX4 internals, including uORB.
• Strong C++ skills and solid Python proficiency for tooling, analysis, and debugging.
• Experience working on real robotic, aerospace, or embedded systems where software interacts closely with hardware.
• Strong understanding of flight controls, vehicle dynamics, estimation, or related disciplines.
• Ability to debug across software, hardware, and system boundaries using logs, instrumentation, and real test data.
• Experience integrating sensors and peripherals over interfaces such as CAN, UART, SPI, and I2C.
• Comfortable owning problems independently and driving them through validation in the lab and in flight.
• Clear communicator who can explain decisions, tradeoffs, and technical risks to a broader team.
• Strong work ethic and a high level of ownership in fast-paced development environments.
• Ability to participate in flight testing and collect your own data when needed.

Nice to Have
• Experience with uXRCE-DDS, UAVCAN, or related communication stacks.
• Background in nonlinear control, filtering, trajectory generation, or estimator development.
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop simulation, automated test pipelines, or SIL/HIL workflows.
• Familiarity with radar, perception sensors, or detect-and-avoid related systems.
• RF or telemetry experience.
• Part 107 certificate or practical flight-test experience.

Details
• Contract to hire
• Availability: 30–40 hr/wk
• Location: Santa Clara , California