Senior Software Engineer, Operator Tools

Job description

At Elroy Air, we build autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) cargo drones to change the way the world moves goods. Transporting cargo by air is faster and more direct than by land or sea, but it has been prohibitively expensive for medium-size loads. We've set out to expand middle-mile logistics possibilities across multiple sectors, with our sights on a $420Bn global total addressable market for cargo logistics across defense, commercial and rapid response. We are a team of builders, engineers, and operators who believe that the defense, commercial, and rapid response communities need faster, better logistics solutions. We are seeing increasing demand as customers and prospects respond enthusiastically to the systems we’ve built. As we mature and deploy our offerings, we are looking for people like you: motivated collaborators, enthusiastic about our mission and ready to roll up their sleeves and make a big impact to improve how logistics works around the world. You will play an important role in establishing the Elroy Air Chaparral as the industry standard in this massive market. We believe diverse perspectives at all levels of the organization are critical to innovation and employee development. This includes but is not limited to gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender expression, religion, age, ability, parenthood status, veteran status, educational background, citizenship status, or any combination of these characteristics. Elroy builds autonomous aerospace systems for the real world. The people who deploy, maintain, and operate those systems need software that is clear, fast, and trustworthy under pressure. Our operator tooling team builds the desktop applications, visualization interfaces, and ground support software that bridge the gap between the vehicle and the humans responsible for it. If you care deeply about the operator experience, have strong instincts for software architecture, and aren’t afraid to venture into the embedded or cloud layers when the problem demands it, this role is for you. ### The Role As a Senior Software Engineer on the Operator Tools team, you will design and build the desktop applications and interfaces that Elroy’s operators and engineers use every day. This includes mission planning tools, real-time telemetry displays, diagnostic interfaces, and ground support workflows. However, this is not a pure front-end role: you will collaborate closely with engineers from a wide variety of disciplines including embedded systems, control systems, flight physics, and power electronics. You will need enough systems intuition to understand the data you’re visualizing and the workflows you’re supporting. ### What You'll Work On - Desktop application development for mission planning, real-time telemetry, and vehicle diagnostics (Qt, Electron, or similar native/hybrid desktop frameworks) - Visualization and data presentation for complex, time-series, and spatial data from autonomous systems - Communication interfaces between desktop tools and embedded systems (serial, UDP, custom protocols, MAVLink or similar) - Ground support tooling: calibration workflows, pre-flight checks, log analysis, and fleet management interfaces - Collaboration with the simulation infrastructure team to expose cloud batch results in accessible, actionable UI - Web-based data analysis and visualization tools that connect to cloud databases. Think interactive flight data replay, post-mission analysis dashboards, and fleet-level trend reporting - C++ and Python development across the stack; comfort moving between application logic and lower-level interfaces - Contribution to the team’s overall software architecture and developer experience, particularly for tooling and internal platforms ### What We're Looking For **You probably have:** - 5+ years of professional software development, with experience across desktop application development and web-based tools, ideally both - Strong C++ and/or Python skills; experience structuring non-trivial desktop applications - A track record of building UIs that are usable under real-world operational conditions, not just demos - Ability to work across the stack: from application logic down to protocol parsing or up to data visualization - Experience integrating applications with real hardware or real-time data sources - High standards for software architecture, API design, and internal tooling quality **It’s a bonus if you have:** - Experience in aerospace, defense, robotics, or other safety-critical domains - Familiarity with embedded software concepts: you don’t need to write firmware, but you should be able to read it, build it, run it, and understand its constraints - Experience with cloud-based simulation or batch processing infrastructure - Exposure to geospatial visualization, 3D rendering, or time-series data at scale ### Our Stack - Primary languages: C++ and Python - Desktop frameworks: Qt and/or Electron (we’re pragmatic and flexible about tooling choices) - Web UI: React or similar modern framework for cloud-connected data visualization and analysis tools; backends in Python - Data: custom telemetry protocols, time-series logs, simulation output from cloud batch runners - Version control and CI: Git, GitHub, cloud-based batch simulation and test runners - Modern AI coding tools used as productivity accelerators, not as a substitute for engineering judgment ### Who We Are Elroy’s software team is small, senior, and exceptionally cross-functional. Most engineers here are comfortable working across embedded firmware, desktop tools, and cloud infrastructure. Not because we expect everyone to be an expert in everything, but because we value curiosity and adaptability over and above having all of the answers on day one. We’re looking for someone who brings deep experience in development of operator/user-facing tooling, and is excited to share it. ### What We Offer: - Competitive salary - Equity ownership in a rapidly growing advanced aerospace company - Comprehensive medical benefits - 401(k) with company contribution + Roth IRA - Free daily lunch provided onsite - Flexible time-off policy - 3 months of paid parental leave - Employee assistance program with 24/7 support - High-impact startup environment with significant ownership and autonomy - Opportunities for rapid career growth and internal advancement - You’ll work with a motivated, kind, and highly skilled team - You'll help shape and define our company culture and values - You'll help build and scale a new category of aerospace / logistics technology