Software Engineer (DevOps)

at  Empirical Systems Aerospace Inc

Software Engineer (DevOps)
Job Description
Empirical Systems Aerospace, Inc. is seeking a dynamic and versatile Software Engineer with DevOps expertise to join our team. ESAero is a growing aerospace company in the San Luis Obispo area and provides various services which include but are not limited to rapid system development, on-demand niche engineering, hands-on development/testing, and small UAS aerospace system manufacturing.
**This position is fully on-site at Empirical System’s Aerospace in San Luis Obispo, CA
Job Summary:
ESAero is seeking a Software Engineer with DevOps expertise to join our team. In this role, you will blend your software development skills with your knowledge of DevOps practices to design, build, and maintain robust, scalable, and efficient systems. Our software team works on multi-disciplinary development of advanced and research aircraft platforms. This is a multi-functional role that will also require candidates to be involved in all phases of design and development collaborating with other engineering disciplines and project personnel.

Projects include:

• Real-time embedded control systems
• Flight control and health management systems
• Battery management systems
• Communications system integration
• Payload and sensor processing units
• Computer vision and machine learning integration
• Manufacturing automation

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Software design, development, and support for internal and external customers.
• Test engineering support of embedded systems.
• Develop and maintain software applications, ensuring high performance and responsiveness.
• Design, implement, and manage CI/CD pipelines to streamline the SW development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to automate deployment processes and monitor system performance of software in the loop (SITL) testing environments.
• Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration management to ensure consistency and repeatability.
• Continuously improve system reliability, security, and scalability through proactive monitoring and automation.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent.
• 3-5 years of relevant engineering experience.
• 3-5 years of experience in one or more programming languages (e.g., Python, Java, C++) with a strong foundation in software development best practices.
• Strong problem-solving skills with a focus on automation, efficiency, and scalability.
• Excellent communication and collaboration abilities to work effectively in a team environment.
• Collaborate on all development efforts: Requirements, Design, Built, Test, Delivery
• Assist in the creation of internal tools and pipelines
• Create comprehensive runtime assurance suites
• Working knowledge of:
• DevOps tools and best practices, including CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure), containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes)
• Compilation and build tools (cmake, make, GCC, Clang, etc.)
• Version control using Git
• Windows and Linux environments
• Willing to relocate to San Luis Obispo, CA
• U.S. Citizen

Desirable Qualifications and Skills:

• Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent
• 5-7 years of experience embedded systems development
• Experience with
• Auto-coded model-based control systems
• Software In the loop (SITL) test and verification
• Hardware In the loop (HITL) test and verification
• PX4 Development
• Certification to DO-178C standards
• Aerospace embedded communication protocols (ARINC 825, UAVCAN, etc…)
• Embedded computational platforms for AI/ML and computer vision applications (e.g. NVIDIA Jetson)
• Setting up and effectively utilizing CI/CD practices for embedded development
• FPGA development
• Test Driven Development
• Systems engineering best practices
• Cyber security requirements for embedded systems
• AI/ML and Computer vision algorithms

Standard Benefits:

• Health: Health/Dental/Vision

• Software design, development, and support for internal and external customers.
• Test engineering support of embedded systems.
• Develop and maintain software applications, ensuring high performance and responsiveness.
• Design, implement, and manage CI/CD pipelines to streamline the SW development lifecycle.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to automate deployment processes and monitor system performance of software in the loop (SITL) testing environments.
• Implement infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration management to ensure consistency and repeatability.
• Continuously improve system reliability, security, and scalability through proactive monitoring and automation