Senior Staff Software Engineer - AQNav

About the Role:

The Sandbox AQ’s AI/Quantum Navigation (“AQNav”) team is looking for a highly-accomplished, veteran software engineer to assist with design, implementation, and testing of robust, industry-proven, real-time avionics-grade software for the AQNav magnetic navigation system. A successful candidate will be responsible for building and owning the end-to-end software lifecycle for internal/external-facing systems and applications. They must demonstrate significant industry experience leading software products through all phases from conception to production, including field deployment and follow-on maintenance services.

The candidate will be part of a diverse team consisting of Physicists, Engineers, DevOps, Cloud Solutions, and Machine Learning experts where they will play a key role in efficient and effective enablement of the technologies being developed

What You’ll Do:

• Serve as a technical expert to guide, lead, and mentor a growing team of engineers to support successful development and deployment of our full-stack software
• Work scope will include tasks such as development/maintenance of internal tooling and libraries, integrating the AQNav system with external avionics systems, automating and streamlining routine complex processes
• Own roadmaps for developing long-term stable software requirements, verification/validation, and software solutions for unique realworld aerospace challenges
• Identify gaps and advocate for process improvements throughout the software development lifecycle
• Drive compliance of AQNav real-time software to DO-178 certification, while upholding quality and efficiency standards for the team, including acting as a software interface between the AQNav team and government certification authorities (e.g. Mil, FAA, EASA, etc)
• Serve as the liaison between AQNav software engineering team and third-party software engineering partners or suppliers

Core Responsibilities

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will have responsibility for the following activities:

1. Design and Planning: In partnership with your AQNav software engineering colleagues, you will take ownership of significant portions of the realtime software stack. You will help with planning and prioritization by assessing both current and longer term software needs, breaking plans down into a series of manageable tasks, and resolving competing priorities
2. Implement: You will execute on your plans by carrying your ideas through from conception to completion, using test-driven development (TDD) to ensure your software is fully validated as it’s being created
3. Testing: You will ensure all testing is automated to the greatest extent possible by developing tools for automating repetitive tasks and tools for assessing system performance, monitoring system behavior, and identifying areas for optimization
4. Communicate: As a senior member of the software and infrastructure subteam, you will regularly communicate progress on your various efforts and give team presentations on newly developed tools and technologies when applicable/appropriate. You will also thoroughly document your work in appropriate forums, including code comments and Confluence wiki pages

Minimum Qualifications:

• BS or MS in Software Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent field of study
• 10+ years of postgraduate experience working software development (preferred), data science, systems engineering, robotics, systems analysis, or other related fields
• U.S. Citizenship is required due to US government contract requirements
• Must be able to obtain and hold a DOD Secret level security clearance
• Experience working on industry fielded software solutions certified avionics software systems (e.g. DO-178); a successful candidate will leverage this experience to advise the AQNav team on best practices to ensure successful software certification.
• Strong expertise in both Python and C/C++. Experience with other languages (Java, HTML/CSS, Rust, Bash scripting, etc. preferred)
• Proficiency in software development methodologies and best practices (e.g., Agile practices, CI/CD, test-driven development.)
• Ability to diagram and specify requirements at system, subsystem, and component levels to aid in the finalization of design decisions; this includes responsibility for design documentation such as software architecture, software specification documents, and testing plans
• Ability to work closely with other software development and cross-functional team members
• Strong Linux fundamentals (bash scripting, operating system configuration) and familiarity with common developer and devops tools such as Ansible, Chef, Terraform, Git, Github, and the Atlassian suite tools Jira and Confluence.
• Long, successful history of bringing software from initial conception through to architecture, development, testing, release into production, and maintenance.
• Willing and able to travel both within the continental US and internationally as required (less than 20% of the time) to support customer engagements, meet with contracting partners, and attend customer product demonstrations

Nice to Haves:

• PhD in Software Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent experience
• Equivalent experience includes tech leadership in a complex space, driving technical design and execution cross-collaboratively across multiple teams and organizations
• Experience working with one or more Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) such as SafeRTOS, RT Linux, RedHawk, and/or VxWorks (SafeRTOS preferred)
• Experience with software development and interfaces on the cloud (e.g. GCP, AWS)
• Knowledge of best practices for the U.S. Department of Defense and/or the Intelligence Community

The US base salary range for this full-time position is expected to be 183k to 304k per year. Our salary ranges are determined by role and level. Within the range, individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. This role may be eligible for annual discretionary bonuses and equity.