Chief Software Engineer

MUST BE ELIGIBLE FOR TOP SECURITY CLEARANCE!

We are seeking a Chief Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and establish the software architecture, engineering practices, and technical direction for advanced robotics and autonomous systems.

This is a highly hands-on technical leadership role. You will operate at the intersection of software architecture, systems engineering, robotics, perception, controls, and embedded computing. You will remain deeply involved in architecture, design, coding, debugging, integration, and validation while providing technical direction across the broader software organization.

The ideal candidate is a proven technical leader who can move fluidly between high-level system architecture and low-level implementation, make difficult engineering tradeoffs, and raise the technical capabilities of the organization without relying on formal management authority.

What You'll Do

• Define and own the overall software architecture and technical direction for complex robotics, autonomy, and embedded systems.
• Lead critical software initiatives from concept and system architecture through implementation, integration, validation, and production deployment.
• Remain hands-on in the codebase, personally contributing to technically challenging or high-risk areas using C++ and Python.
• Establish software engineering standards, architectural principles, development practices, and technical review processes across the organization.
• Architect software systems that integrate perception, computer vision, controls, autonomy, embedded computing, networking, electrical systems, and mechanical systems.
• Provide technical leadership across multiple software and multidisciplinary engineering teams, driving alignment on architecture, interfaces, performance, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
• Identify and mitigate high-impact technical risks and make critical architectural and engineering tradeoffs.
• Partner with engineering leadership and product teams to develop technical roadmaps and translate product objectives into scalable software architectures.
• Drive improvements in software performance, reliability, testing, observability, development velocity, and system-level integration.
• Lead architecture reviews, design reviews, technical investigations, and complex debugging efforts.
• Mentor senior and staff-level engineers and help develop the organization's technical leadership capabilities.
• Serve as a senior technical authority and trusted advisor on software architecture, system design, and engineering strategy.

What You'll Need

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant experience operating at Staff, Principal, Chief, or equivalent technical leadership levels.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred.
• Extensive experience designing and implementing complex software systems using C++ and Python, ideally within robotics, autonomous systems, embedded systems, or other high-performance engineering environments.
• Demonstrated track record of personally architecting and delivering complex, business-critical, or mission-critical software systems.
• Deep expertise in software architecture, system design, performance optimization, multithreading, concurrency, memory management, system programming, debugging, and software reliability.
• Proven ability to establish technical direction across multiple teams and multidisciplinary engineering organizations.
• Strong understanding of software engineering practices including design patterns, code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, Git-based workflows, technical documentation, and production software development.
• Experience integrating software with hardware and other engineering disciplines, including mechanical, electrical, perception, controls, and systems engineering.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical decisions without relying on formal authority and build alignment around complex architectural decisions.
• Exceptional technical judgment, problem-solving ability, and communication skills.
• Ability to balance long-term architectural strategy with hands-on execution and near-term product delivery.

You'll Stand Out

• Experience serving as a Chief Software Engineer, Principal Engineer, Chief Architect, CTO, or equivalent senior technical leader in a technology-driven organization.
• Deep experience architecting and implementing software for robotics, autonomy, perception, navigation, controls, or real-time systems.
• Experience with GPU programming, CUDA, OpenCL, parallel computing, or hardware-accelerated software optimization.
• Strong knowledge of networking protocols, distributed systems, edge computing, embedded Linux, or real-time operating systems.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch, computer vision pipelines, sensor fusion, or scientific computing.
• Experience establishing software architecture standards, technical roadmaps, design review processes, and engineering governance across a growing organization.
• Track record of leading large, technically complex initiatives across multiple teams while remaining directly involved in architecture, coding, debugging, integration, and delivery.
• Experience developing software for high-reliability, safety-critical, or mission-critical environments.
• Ability to build and scale a world-class software engineering organization while maintaining a strong culture of technical ownership and execution.