Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-hitting Staff Software Engineer role focused on building advanced Linux-based software for stratospheric balloon and radar systems. You will not just be writing code in a silo; you will be driving architectural decisions and talking directly with customers to turn operational needs into actual engineering deliverables. If you like working on deeply technical embedded systems that actually leave the ground, this is worth your time.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You'll spend your days bouncing between high-level architectural design and hands-on coding. One minute you're debugging a kernel-level issue or tweaking a Yocto recipe, and the next you're helping Business Development scope a proposal or mentoring junior devs. The biggest challenge here is bridging the gap between hardware, custom embedded Linux, and real-world field missions where failure isn't an option.
The Core Tech Stack
Your bread and butter here will be C and C++ running on custom Linux environments. You need deep fluency in Linux kernel development, embedded system design, and the Yocto project—specifically building layers, custom recipes, and managing build configurations. Shell scripting is your go-to for automation and troubleshooting, so if you aren't completely comfortable dropping into the command line to diagnose performance bottlenecks under pressure, you're going to struggle.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring team to probe deeply into your kernel and embedded knowledge, likely asking you to walk through how you would diagnose a hard-to-reproduce memory leak or driver crash on an embedded target. They are secretly looking for your methodology: do you understand low-level system behavior, or are you just guessing? They'll also test your architectural pragmatism, asking how you balance clean code principles against the tight constraints of custom hardware.
Application Advice
Skip the generic fluff on your resume and put your embedded Linux credentials front and center. Explicitly highlight your production experience with Yocto, C/C++, and Linux kernel work, using the exact terminology from the job description to clear the ATS filters. If you have experience supporting customer proposals or writing technical documentation for hardware-software integration, make sure that's clearly visible too.