Senior Ground Software Engineer

About Odin Dynamics

Founded in 2025, Odin Dynamics is a defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles that will define the next era of undersea warfare. We are focused on delivering capable, resilient autonomous systems that strengthen the strategic advantage of the United States and its allied navies. We move fast, build real hardware, and operate with the urgency that the mission demands.

We are building a new platform from the ground up. This is not a role where you will inherit a mature product with every architectural decision already made. You will take incomplete requirements, early hardware, and difficult technical constraints and turn them into dependable, production-ready autonomy systems.

We value rigorous engineering without unnecessary process. Decisions should be driven by physics, test data, and product outcomes—not inherited convention or documentation volume.

The Role

Odin Dynamics is hiring a Senior Ground Software Engineer to serve as the Responsible Engineer for the ground software stack of our autonomous underwater vehicle platform.

This engineer will own the complete ground software lifecycle: requirements, architecture, system design, implementation, testing, validation, field support, production support, failure analysis, and continued improvement after deployment.

This is a true full-stack software engineering role. You will build frontend and backend software for mission planning, operator workflows, vehicle supervision, telemetry handling, telemetry visualization, data review, post-mission analysis, and remote mission-control workflows. The work includes product-quality user interfaces, backend services, APIs, telemetry pipelines, time-series data handling, storage systems, and analysis tools used by engineers and operators.

This is not a generic web-application role, and it is not a narrow backend or UI role. The software you build will be used with real autonomous systems, real field data, constrained communications, incomplete requirements, and difficult operating environments. You will be expected to translate evolving operator, test, autonomy, and engineering needs into usable workflows and dependable production software.

You will work closely with Autonomy Software engineers on mission-planning workflows, offboard autonomy-support tools, simulation, replay, mission review, and post-mission analysis. You will also work closely with Embedded Software, Avionics, Test Engineering, and Operations to ensure that ground software integrates cleanly with vehicle software, telemetry systems, test infrastructure, and field operations.

This is a hands-on individual-contributor position. You will be expected to write substantial production code, make technical decisions, mentor other engineers, and remain accountable for the usability, reliability, and maintainability of the ground software stack. There are no organizational handoffs when a difficult problem crosses the boundary between frontend, backend, data systems, autonomy, embedded software, test engineering, or operations.

What You’ll Do

• Serve as the Responsible Engineer for the ground software stack.

• Develop greenfield ground software from initial requirements and architecture through field-tested, production-ready implementation.

• Build frontend and backend software for mission planning, operator workflows, vehicle supervision, telemetry visualization, data review, post-mission analysis, and remote mission-control workflows.

• Design and implement operator-facing interfaces that help users plan missions, understand vehicle state, inspect telemetry, review data, and make effective decisions.

• Build backend services, APIs, data models, and application logic to support development, test, field operations, and production use.

• Develop telemetry ingestion, validation, normalization, storage, visualization, alerting, replay, and analysis capabilities.

• Design data storage and handling approaches for high-volume telemetry, logs, mission data, analysis results, and time-series data.

• Develop tools for engineering analysis, log inspection, anomaly investigation, mission replay, system debugging, and failure analysis.

• Build map-based and geospatial workflows for planning, route visualization, constraints, review, and operational awareness.

• Develop ground software that can support connected and disconnected use, intermittent or constrained communications, and on-premises or cloud-hosted deployment models.

• Work closely with Autonomy Software, Embedded Software, Avionics, Test Engineering, and Operations to support vehicle integration, mission planning, telemetry, diagnostics, simulation, replay, and field testing.

• Test and validate software using unit tests, integration tests, system-level tests, SIL, simulation and replay, and HITL test environments.

• Analyze ground software behavior, telemetry pipelines, data integrity, operator workflows, and system performance to identify root causes and drive corrective improvements.

• Build software with appropriate product-security considerations, including authentication, authorization, auditability, data protection, secure deployment, and operation in constrained or disconnected environments.

• Write, review, test, profile, and debug production software using modern frontend, backend, database, and data-processing technologies.

• Build automated development workflows using modern build systems, CI/CD, static analysis, profiling, automated testing, and software-quality tooling.

• Produce concise, functional engineering documentation that enables implementation, testing, operation, troubleshooting, and future development.

• Use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate implementation, testing, debugging, data analysis, and documentation while independently validating outputs and maintaining a first-principles understanding of the resulting system.

• Mentor other engineers and contribute to technical reviews without moving away from hands‑on engineering.

• Support field testing and sea trials when required, work directly with operators, and may support operational use during tests.

What We’re Looking For

• Deep practical experience developing full-stack production software across both frontend and backend systems.

• Strong frontend product-development experience building usable, reliable, operator-facing or customer-facing software.

• Strong backend and API-development experience for production applications, data systems, or operational software.

• Experience building telemetry pipelines, data-ingestion systems, data-processing workflows, time-series data systems, or comparable systems that handle real-world operational data.

• Strong proficiency with modern frontend and backend web technologies and a modern data-storage layer.

• Experience designing software for constrained, intermittent, unreliable, low‑bandwidth, or high‑latency communications environments.

• Experience validating production software through unit testing, integration testing, system testing, simulation, replay, SIL, HITL, or comparable test environments.

• Experience writing maintainable code, conducting code reviews, using static analysis, profiling performance, debugging complex software behavior, and improving software reliability over time.

• Ability to reason from first principles about usability, data integrity, system behavior, failure modes, edge cases, and operational risk.

• Ability to work independently with minimal oversight while collaborating closely across engineering disciplines.

• Willingness to support field testing and sea trials when required.

Approximately five or more years of relevant full-stack, ground software, mission software, data systems, telemetry, or production software experience is preferred, but demonstrated technical depth, multidisciplinary problem‑solving ability, and a record of delivering difficult systems matter more than a specific number of years. Exceptional candidates at any experience level are encouraged to apply.

Preferred Experience

• Mission planning, ground software, mission‑control software, operator tools, telemetry systems, command‑and‑control systems, or other operational software for complex technical products.

• Autonomous vehicles, unmanned systems, underwater systems, UAVs, robotics, aerospace systems, maritime systems, defense systems, industrial autonomy, or other real‑world platforms.

• Taking full‑stack software from early architecture through field‑tested deployment and continued improvement after operational use.

• Building product‑quality interfaces for operators, engineers, analysts, or other technical users in high‑consequence environments.

• Developing map‑based, geospatial, routing, planning, review, or operational‑awareness workflows.

• Developing safety‑critical, mission‑critical, security‑conscious, or high‑reliability software for systems that operate in difficult real‑world environments.

• Working closely with autonomy, embedded software, electrical, mechanical, test, manufacturing, and operations teams on tightly integrated electromechanical systems.

$140,000 - $220,000 a year

• Competitive salaries benchmarked against the defense and robotics industries
• Meaningful early‑stage equity
• Full covered health, dental, vision
• 401(k)
• Paid time off
• We invest in professional development and support our people in growing their skills alongside the company.
• We tie compensation to the impact you have, not your title.
• As we grow, our compensation and benefits will grow with us.
• We're building this company alongside the people who join it, and we believe everyone here should share in what we build together.

Odin Dynamics is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will be treated with respect and receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, uniform service, Veteran status, age, or any other protected characteristic per federal, state, or local law, including those with a criminal history, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws.