Senior Software Engineer - Flight Autonomy

Senior Software Engineer- Flight Autonomy

Merlin Labs is seeking a Senior Software Engineer with strong experience in DO-178C flight software development and avionics integration. In this role, you will design and implement safety-critical autonomous flight software, integrate it with avionics hardware platforms, and contribute to certification-ready development processes.

Responsibilities:

• Develop, integrate, and verify flight-critical software using C/C++ following DO-178C processes.
• Build application-level flight software and ensure robust integration with underlying avionics hardware interfaces
• Create, maintain and review software requirements, code and certification artifacts adhering to certification plans and standards
• Troubleshoot integration issues on test benches and aircraft
• Develop automated workflows for software integration and build processes.
• Collaborate with engineers from cross functional groups such as systems, safety, hardware, flight controls and test to ensure product and program level needs are met.
• Contribute to planning and execution of SOI audits and certification reviews.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for software requirements, architecture, build processes and design decisions
• Support hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), processor-in-the-loop (PIL), and flight testing activities.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or related field.
• 3-5 years of embedded or flight software development experience within a DO-178C environment.
• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for embedded, real-time, safety-critical systems.
• Understanding of avionics protocols and architectures (ARINC 429, ARINC 653, CAN, MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet).
• Experience designing and implementing software for real-time operating systems (RTOS), with strong knowledge of low level topics such as device driver development, interrupt handling, memory management, and performance estimation.
• Strong experience with requirements management, including authoring high-quality software requirements, maintaining traceability, and using tools such as DOORS, Jama, or Polarion.
• Experience with hardware/software integration, debugging on target hardware, and use of analysis tools (logic analyzers, bus analyzers).
• Experience with Python scripting, tool automation and test automation
• Experience with CI/CD environments and automated code quality checks.

Nice To Have

• Background integrating software across diverse avionics platforms or multicore systems.
• Familiarity with flight controls, autonomy, GNC, or aircraft certification efforts.
• Exposure to MathWorks tools and Model-Based Development workflows (DO-331).
• Prior involvement in SOI audits or FAA/EASA certification programs.