Embedded Flight Software Developer

Within the Defense Sector, the Airborne Systems Business Area at Leidos currently has an opening for a talented Flight Software Developer to work in our Huntsville office. This is an exciting opportunity to use your knowledge and experience to research, develop, and demonstrate software for tactical strike, sensors, autonomy, UAS, and counter-UAS solutions.

​This position focuses on the development of robust, innovative, modular software for real-time embedded airborne systems, as well as the fielding, operations, support, and maintenance of existing embedded software products. The position includes work on different software products across the system: embedded flight software, analysis tools/simulations, mission planning software, and components of mission-critical systems. This position will involve embedded a variety of computing technologies, hardware, interfaces, and development/debugging tools such as device drivers, flash memory, bootloaders, board support packages, printed circuit boards (PCBs), microcontrollers, JTAG interfaces, real-time operating systems (RTOS), single board computers, systems-on-chip (SoCs), and varying levels of communications protocols.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design and develop robust modern, object-oriented C++ embedded software for airborne computing subsystems.
• Develop software in accordance with software coding and safety standards in collaboration with peer team members and under the oversight of senior software developers.

• Assist with creating, executing, and automating unit and integration tests on software components.

• Work as part of an Agile software development team and participate in planning, task estimation, execution, and progress reporting.

• Participate in code reviews to maintain code quality and share knowledge with the team.

• Rapidly troubleshoot and resolve application issues and bugs.
• Contribute to team guides and technical data that supports development, test, and sustainment of the fieldable software.
• Use GitLab CI/CD pipelines for performing configuration management, continuous integration, and automated testing.

• Other software development technical duties as assigned. 

• Communicate directly and regularly with customers, end users, and other team members.

 Basic Qualifications

• Candidate must possess at least a bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent technical degree with an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher.

• Candidate must be a U.S. citizen and be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Department of Defense security clearance.
• Candidate should have 0-18 years of relevant technical experience. Relevant academic, internship, research, or professional technical experience may be considered.
• Relevant technical experience must include developing, integrating, testing, or troubleshooting embedded software or embedded-adjacent applications that interface with, operate, monitor, support, simulate, control, or communicate with embedded systems.

• Candidate should have knowledge of developing software in accordance with disciplined software engineering practices, such as requirements analysis, configuration management, version control, coding standards, peer review, unit testing, continuous integration, integration testing, and software verification.

• Candidate must demonstrate a strong competency in detailed software design and coding in one or more of the following relevant programming languages [C, C++, Java, C#, Rust, or Python] and possess the ability to learn and effectively develop in modern C++.
• Candidate is expected to participate effectively in peer reviews, both providing and incorporating constructive technical feedback.

• Candidate should have familiarity or experience developing or writing unit and/or integration tests using a test framework

• Have strong quantitative, analytical and process improvement skills along with a personal drive for accurate details and quality workmanship.

• Aptitude with Linux and Windows operating systems and their respective development tools/IDEs, scripts, debuggers, and administrative features is also expected.
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• Familiarity with Agile development methodologies and use of one or more Agile tools, such as GitLab Ultimate, Atlassian Jira, Trello, or Monday.com.
• Demonstrate familiarity with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and professional character.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with applicable industry standards (e.g., IEEE 12207, CMMI, DO-178C and/or DO-278, RMF, MIL-STD-882) is a plus.
• Experience using AI to assist with software coding, testing, and/or technical document generation is a plus.
• The ability to work across multiple products under development by multiple small teams is highly desirable.
• Experience with the design and implementation of time-critical software for integrated systems, such as real-time control software, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, sensors, vehicles, medical devices, or IoT components.
• Experience with hardware/software integration, board bring-up, and debugging using tools such as JTAG debuggers, logic analyzers, logs, oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers, RTOS applications, or similar development tools is highly desirable.

 * This posting is for multiple opportunities ranging in years of experience. Level of opportunity, including compensation, will be matched to a candidate’s experience.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.