Website:
zoidtech.co.in
Job details:
About The Role
ZOID's systems software team builds the software that makes defense hardware think, communicate, and act. Our products include ship-launched UAV systems that protect naval vessels from anti-ship missiles, AI-powered detection platforms deployed on airfields and marine vessels, electronic warfare systems, and multi-drone platforms that coordinate autonomously in contested and GNSS-denied environments.
We are looking for a
Senior Systems Engineer to own the software architecture and technical direction across these product lines. You will architect software for systems ranging from swarms of multi-rotor drones to high-compute AI servers deployed on naval vessels, from software that integrates directly into a warship's combat management system to distributed hardware nodes connected over tactical mesh networks. You will then build what you architect, produce the defense-grade documentation to back it, and take it through testing and field deployment.
This is a technical leadership position. You start as a senior individual contributor and grow into leading a software team within 6-12 months. You report directly to the CTO.
What You'll Do
Software Architecture and Engineering Documentation
This Is Your First And Most Critical Responsibility. You Will Design End-to-end Software Architectures For Defense Applications Across a Range Of System Types
- Multi-drone swarm platforms requiring coordinated autonomy, inter-vehicle communication, and mission-level decision logic.
- High-compute AI inference servers deployed on marine vessels or ground vehicles, with constraints on power, thermal management, and ruggedization.
- Software systems that interface with or integrate into third-party defense platforms such as shipborne combat management systems, requiring strict protocol compliance and middleware interoperability.
- Ground control stations and operator HMIs that tie together telemetry, command/control, health monitoring, and tactical displays.
For each system, you will define the full software stack: application logic, inter-process communication, networking topology, OS-level configuration, security hardening, and deployment strategy.
You will also produce engineering documentation to defense standards. The primary standard is IEEE/ISO/IEC 12207 (software lifecycle processes) with IEEE 29148 (requirements engineering). Familiarity with or willingness to learn adjacent standards is expected. Relevant standards include DO-178C, MIL-STD-498, & STANAG 4586.
You will establish and enforce coding standards, code review processes, version control workflows, and CI/build practices for the software team.
Autonomous UAV and UGV Software
This is a major area of responsibility. ZOID develops multi-rotor drones and ground vehicles for defense missions including surveillance, electronic warfare, ship protection, and kinetic strike.
You Will
- Work deep inside ArduPilot and PX4 codebases. This means reading, understanding, and modifying the core source. You should be able to add custom flight modes, modify the EKF configuration, write custom failsafe logic, integrate non-standard sensors and payloads, and build features that the upstream firmware does not support.
- Develop companion computer software that runs alongside the flight controller, handling tasks like onboard perception, mission-level decision making, payload control, and communication relay.
- Implement multi-drone swarming logic: inter-vehicle coordination, formation control, task allocation, deconfliction, and distributed decision-making across a fleet.
- Implement GNSS-denied navigation using alternative sensing (visual-inertial odometry, optical flow, terrain-relative navigation, or similar).
- Work with MAVLink protocol extensively for communication between flight controllers, companion computers, ground control stations, and operator interfaces. This includes custom MAVLink message definitions where needed.
- Set up and maintain SITL and HITL simulation environments for testing autonomous behaviors before flight. Analyze flight logs for debugging and tuning.
- Integrate with and configure sensor payloads: gimbal cameras, EO/IR sensors, GNSS receivers, range finders, LIDAR, and communication modules.
Hardware and Sensor Integration
- Interface with GNSS receivers, inertial measurement units (IMUs), industrial cameras, thermal/IR cameras, LIDAR, rangefinders, communication radios, flight controllers, gimbal systems, and other peripherals.
- For generic hardware (e.g., USB cameras, standard GNSS modules, common IMUs): use and contribute to open-source drivers, configure kernel modules, and write integration layers.
- For specialized hardware (e.g., Basler/FLIR industrial cameras, Veronte autopilots, military-grade radios): work with manufacturer SDKs, understand vendor-specific APIs and protocols, and build robust wrappers that isolate vendor dependencies from the rest of the system.
- Communicate over serial protocols (UART, SPI, I2C, RS-232, RS-422)
- Read datasheets and technical reference manuals, coordinate with hardware engineers, and debug issues that live at the hardware-software boundary.
Linux Systems, Networking, and Infrastructure
- Provision, configure, and harden Linux (Ubuntu) OS images for field-deployed systems: secure boot, minimal attack surface, automated provisioning, systemd service management, user/permission lockdown.
- Implement process management: watchdog timers, heartbeat monitoring, automatic service restart, graceful shutdown sequencing, zombie process management.
- Write robust bash scripts for system configuration, network management, service orchestration, and deployment automation.
- Implement DDS middleware for real-time pub/sub communication in distributed defense systems, including domain partitioning, QoS policy configuration, and topic architecture.
- Build TCP/UDP socket communication, RTSP video streaming pipelines, and mesh networking for multi-node systems.
- Implement IEEE 1588 PTP and NTP time synchronization across distributed nodes where timing accuracy is operationally critical.
Required Qualifications
- 6 to 10 years of software engineering experience, with the majority in systems-level, embedded, robotics, autonomous systems, or defense software.
- Expert-level C++: memory management, concurrency, multi-threading, performance optimization. Production-level Python for automation, prototyping, and scripting.
- Demonstrated experience designing software architectures for real-time or mission-critical systems: module decomposition, IPC, state machines, data flow, and deployment topology.
- Deep Linux proficiency: system, process management, networking stack, shell scripting, OS-level debugging.
- Hands-on experience with ArduPilot or PX4 source code: reading, modifying, and building the codebase. Understanding of MAVLink, SITL/HITL, companion computer integration, flight log analysis, and custom flight mode development.
- Socket-level network programming (TCP/UDP). Experience with at least one pub/sub middleware.
- Experience building multi-threaded and multi-process systems on multi-core and/or multi-GPU hardware.
- Ability to produce defense-grade engineering documentation to IEEE 12207 or demonstrated aptitude to learn.
- Self-directed. Capable of picking up unfamiliar SDKs, sensor hardware, or large codebases and becoming productive without close supervision.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience deploying ML inference pipelines on edge hardware (Jetson, NUC) or server hardware (multi-GPU, TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, CUDA).
- DDS middleware implementation including QoS configuration and domain architecture.
- Hardware integration experience: sensor bring-up, serial protocols (UART, SPI, I2C, RS-422), industrial camera SDKs (Basler, FLIR, Allied Vision).
- ROS / ROS2 with real robot or drone deployments.
- GStreamer / RTSP video pipeline development.
- GNSS receiver integration and protocols (NMEA, UBX).
- IEEE 1588 PTP / NTP time synchronization implementation.
- Familiarity with defense software standards (DO-178C, MIL-STD-498, STANAG 4586).
- Multi-drone swarming, formation control, or multi-agent coordination systems.
- Contributions to open-source projects (ArduPilot, PX4, ROS, or equivalent).
- Previous employment at a defense organization: DRDO, HAL, BEL, defense startup, or equivalent.
Education
- B.Tech / M.Tech in Computer Science, Electronics, Aerospace, or related discipline preferred. Equivalent demonstrable experience accepted.
Skills: defense,architecture,documentation,software
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