SiFly is seeking a Flight Controller Software Engineer to extend the core autonomy, performance, and safety capabilities of our long-endurance UAV platform. You’ll work directly inside PX4 and our custom avionics stack to integrate sensors and payloads and develop novel flight-control features while verifying their effect through simulation, bench testing, and live flights. This role blends embedded robotics, controls engineering, and system-level problem solving in a fast-moving, hardware-in-the-loop environment where strong communication and high ownership are essential. Come find your groove and grow into a core contributor on a production flight system!

What You’ll Do

• Develop and improve flight-control and failsafe behaviors, mission logic, and setpoint handling.
• Contribute to and use simulation for pre-flight validation.
• Participate directly in flight tests: collecting data, evaluating behavior, tuning performance, and diagnosing edge cases.
• Implement and extend PX4 modules, drivers, and middleware for sensors, payloads, and onboard peripherals.
• Analyze flight logs and sensor data (Python tooling) to verify algorithms and understand system interactions.
• Collaborate closely with avionics, hardware, and autonomy teams; communicate progress and issues clearly.
• Help design integration workflows, configuration processes, and diagnostic tools for development and deployment.

What We’re Looking For

• Strong work ethic. We move quickly, test constantly, and expect high ownership.
• Clear communicator who is comfortable discussing decisions, tradeoffs, and system-level implications with the broader team.
• Proficiency in C++ (academic or professional) and comfort with Python.
• 2+ years experience in robotics, embedded systems, aerospace, or similar fields.
• Understanding of dynamics, control systems, or estimation (coursework acceptable).
• Comfort working with hardware, logs, and real flight data; ability to debug issues across software–hardware boundaries.
• Ability to perform flight testing to collect your own data.
• Curiosity, resourcefulness, and the ability to synthesize insights across disciplines.

Nice to Have

• Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, ROS2, or similar robotics frameworks.
• Sensor/driver integration experience (CAN, UART, SPI, I2C, UAVCAN, MAVLink).
• Background in filtering, nonlinear control, or trajectory generation.
• Hardware-in-the-loop simulation or automated test pipelines.
• Experience with radar/perception sensors or detect-and-avoid logic.
• RF/telemetry familiarity.
• Part 107 certificate or flight-test experience.

Details

• Contract to hire
• Availability: 30 – 40 hr/wk
• Location: Santa Clara, CA

Apply here