Senior Software Engineer - Mission Autonomy (All Genders)

About this role

About Us STARK is a new kind of defence technology company revolutionizing the way autonomous systems are deployed across multiple domains. We design, develop and manufacture high-performance unmanned systems that are software-defined, mass-scalable, and cost-effective. This provides our operators with a decisive edge in highly contested environments. We're focused on delivering deployable, high-performance systems - not future promises.

In a time of rising threats, STARK is bolstering the technological edge of NATO Allies and their Partners to deter aggression and defend Europe - today. About the team We move fast, ship real software, and operate under constraints most engineers never encounter — low-bandwidth networks, air-gapped devices, high-stakes decision loops. There is no room for abstraction for its own sake. Everything we build ends up in the hands of real operators in the field .

Our Team is dedicated to a mission of pure strikes. Your mission As a Senior Software Engineer with a focus on Aerial Swarming, you will play a critical role in enabling real-time cooperative autonomy onboard next-generation multi-UAV platforms. You will work directly with decentralized routing networks, ROS2-based systems, and embedded compute platforms to build robust, efficient, and scalable swarming functionality.

You will contribute as a highly skilled individual contributor—hands-on with the system—bridging diverse codebases, optimizing real-time communications, and taking software from simulation through field deployment. Your work will be essential to ensuring that our autonomous multi-vehicle systems operate reliably in real-world, resource-constrained environments. Responsibilities Develop and integrate real-time cooperative control, decentralized routing, and perception algorithms on embedded platforms such as NVIDIA Jetson devices.

Architect and optimize multi-agent communication networks utilizing ROS2 and DDS architectures to ensure reliable data distribution in challenging environments. Implement and maintain Software-in-the-Loop (SITL) and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) testing environments to rigorously validate swarming features before physical flight. Collaborate with AI, controls, and hardware teams to ensure tight integration between swarming behaviors and other onboard subsystems.