Senior Ground Software Engineer
About this role
We are looking for a Senior Ground Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience to own the full telemetry and command-and-control pipeline for our autonomous underwater vehicle platform. You'll be the type of engineer who has built real telemetry systems for remotely operated vehicles — drones, rockets, or autonomous cars — not just web apps. This is a greenfield opportunity to architect the entire ground software stack from scratch, getting data off vehicles in the field via satellite links and into cloud infrastructure for live viewing and long-term storage. You'll work at a SpaceX-paced early-stage defense company with multimillion-dollar Navy contracts, substantial early-stage equity, and a clear path to Series A. If you can get an MVP to 80% fast and iterate from there, this is your role.
What will you be doing?
Build the full telemetry pipeline — taking data transmitted from underwater vehicles, routing it through satellite links, and delivering it to AWS for live dashboards and time-series storage
Design and implement the command-and-control system for issuing commands to vehicles deployed in the field
Write telemetry emission code in C/C++ or Rust that lives on the embedded Linux side, plus Python-based data processing on the ground
Build auto-scaling cloud infrastructure (AWS) that adapts dynamically when multiple vehicles are deployed simultaneously on missions
Work closely with the embedded Linux engineer to define data formats, protocols (Protobuf, Kafka, UDP), and ensure reliable data flow from vehicle to ground station
Company at a glance
This defense technology startup, founded in 2024 by veterans from SpaceX, Tesla, and Vast Space, develops multi-domain autonomous systems for the U.S. Navy at significantly lower costs than established competitors.
What happens next
Skip the application pile. I get you in front of the people who decide.
Confirm the fit
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I pitch you to the company
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
A meeting lands on your calendar
When the company wants to meet, I get the call on your calendar. You just show up.
Culture & values
SpaceX-inspired culture with strong Responsible Engineer model
Every engineer owns their system end-to-end: requirements, design, implementation, testing, field deployment, and production
Team moves fast, works hard, and expects urgency that early-stage defense demands
Values builders over researchers, first-principles thinking over inherited convention, and speed over process
Decisions driven by physics, test data, and product outcomes
No organizational handoffs or siloed responsibilities
Greenfield environment with no legacy code or inherited architecture
Hands-on engineering culture with work in lab, dive pool, and field deployments
Small elite team of ~7 people where every hire has outsized impact
Rapid iteration and intensity expected
Engineers make foundational technical decisions from scratch
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