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SW-01

Flight Software Engineer

Ground control and flight controls

Overview

This role covers the development and validation of ground control station software and flight controls for unmanned aircraft. The engineer develops operator applications using open-source platforms, establishes flight simulation and test environments, and configures and tunes flight control systems across the aircraft’s operating modes.

Core responsibilities

  • Design and develop ground control station software on an open-source base, including mission planning on a digital map, telemetry and status displays, and vehicle commands over MAVLink.
  • Build mission and payload features, including live video with flight-data overlays, a moving map synchronised with the video, recording and replay for debriefing, and support for standard map and elevation data formats.
  • Write maintainable, tested code for a Windows desktop application intended for later porting to Android and iOS, with version control, code reviews, unit tests and release builds.
  • Build and maintain the flight simulation (SITL, and an aircraft dynamics model derived from aerodynamic data), and configure and tune flight control for multirotor, fixed-wing and VTOL-transition flight, including failsafe logic.
  • Conduct HITL tests, set up the ground station for ground and flight tests, and analyse flight logs to tune the aircraft through each flight phase.
  • Document software designs, tests and decisions.

Qualifications

Essential

  • B.E./B.Tech in Computer Science, Electronics & Communication, Aerospace or Mechatronics Engineering.
  • 0–1 year of experience.
  • Strong programming skills in C++ and Python, with object-oriented design.
  • Experience of desktop or mobile application development (Qt/QML preferred).
  • Familiarity with Git, and with development on Linux and Windows.
  • Exposure to ArduPilot or PX4 and MAVLink (academic or competition projects are acceptable).

Preferred

  • Knowledge of control-systems fundamentals.
  • Experience of building or flying a drone for a competition or project; RC flying.
  • Work in the QGroundControl or Mission Planner source code.
  • C#/.NET desktop development.
  • Video streaming (GStreamer) and map or GIS libraries (GDAL or equivalent).
  • Android or iOS development.
  • Gazebo or JSBSim simulation; ROS 2.
  • MATLAB/Simulink.
  • Knowledge of flight dynamics.