Software Engineer, Platform

Summary

Join AeroVect, a Series A company revolutionizing ground handling with autonomous technology, as a Platform Engineer. You will be responsible for the reliability, performance, and scalability of the software powering our autonomous ground vehicle fleet. This involves managing and optimizing Ubuntu-based operating system images, middleware, and device drivers. Your work directly supports our perception and autonomy teams in delivering safe, production-ready capabilities. You will design, build, and maintain custom Linux distributions, optimize ROS 2 middleware, develop device drivers, and implement monitoring solutions. Collaboration with other engineering teams and on-call support are also key aspects of this role. You will contribute to CI/CD pipelines and technical documentation.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience developing or maintaining Linux-based embedded or robotics platforms
• Deep knowledge of Ubuntu or Linux systems, including package management, systemd, networking, and kernel configuration
• Proficiency in C/C++ and Python; experience writing or debugging kernel modules and user-space drivers
• Hands-on experience with ROS 1 or ROS 2 in a production or research setting
• Familiarity with common communication buses and protocols (USB, Ethernet, CAN, PCIe, SPI, I2C)
• Strong grasp of real-time performance tuning, profiling tools (perf, eBPF, tracing), and resource-constrained optimization
• Experience with Git, Docker/OCI containers, and automated build systems (Yocto, Buildroot, or similar)

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain custom Ubuntu/Linux distributions tailored for real-time, safety-critical autonomous vehicle workloads
• Optimize and tune ROS 2 DDS middleware (e.g., Cyclone DDS, Fast DDS) for low-latency, high-throughput multi-sensor data flows
• Develop, integrate, and maintain kernel modules and user-space drivers for LiDARs, cameras, radars, GNSS/INS, CAN, and other vehicle interfaces
• Maintain and expand the network interfaces of the system
• Implement observability and logging solutions to monitor system health, performance, and resource utilization in both lab and field deployments
• Collaborate with autonomy, perception, and controls engineers to profile CPU/GPU usage and remove bottlenecks across the stack
• Harden the platform for production by applying security patches, enforcing secure boot, and implementing over-the-air (OTA) update pipelines
• Own CI/CD pipelines for OS images and driver packages; automate build, test, and deployment processes
• Provide on-call support for platform components during field trials and customer pilots
• Contribute to technical documentation and best-practice guidelines for internal and external developers

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior work on autonomous vehicles, drones, or other safety-critical robotic systems
• Experience with ptp4l configurations in complex systems
• Experience with v4l2/gstreamer
• Experience with Nvidia Orin/Jetson platforms
• Experience customizing the Linux kernel for PREEMPT_RT or other real-time patches
• Knowledge of DDS internals and QoS tuning for deterministic data delivery
• Familiarity with GPU acceleration frameworks (CUDA, Vulkan) and heterogeneous compute scheduling
• Experience integrating functional safety libraries and tools (e.g., MISRA, ISO 26262 compliance workflow)
• Comfort working in a fast-paced startup environment and supporting field deployments at airports or other industrial sites