Software Engineer, Real-Time Generalist

Swarm Aero is redefining air power, building the largest swarming UAV and the most versatile swarming aircraft network in the world. The company is moving quickly to launch the first aircraft designed specifically for swarming, as well as the Command & Control software to mobilize swarms of thousands of heterogeneous autonomous assets and empower human operators to achieve superhuman results.

The team has created and exited multiple startups, negotiated defense deals worth billions of dollars, and designed and built 30+ novel aircraft, with aerospace experience from Scaled Composites, Airbus, Archer Aviation, Blue Origin, and Boom Supersonic.

The Opportunity

Most full stack roles ask you to move pixels around a dashboard. This one asks you to help architect the system that controls the largest drone swarm on the planet.

You’ll join the team building Legion, Swarm Aero’s Command & Control platform. Legion enables a single operator to plan, direct, and execute missions across a networked swarm of heterogeneous aircraft in real time, over intermittent communications, and at a scale nobody else in the industry is attempting.

This is not a role maintaining a finished product or adding features around the edges. You’ll help define the architecture, establish core technical patterns, and build entirely new capabilities for a problem space with little prior art. The work spans real-time distributed systems, dense telemetry visualization, collaborative mission planning, and operator interfaces where clarity and reliability directly affect mission outcomes.

You’ll have meaningful influence over what we build, how we build it, and how the platform evolves as the team and system scale.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Help architect and build the full stack of a Command & Control system directing large swarms of heterogeneous aircraft

• Design the foundational systems, technical patterns, and interfaces that will shape Legion as it scales

• Build collaborative, real-time infrastructure that allows operators to control large numbers of aircraft simultaneously, including through degraded or intermittent communications

• Create new ways to represent and interact with vehicle telemetry, sensor data, mission schedules, crew resources, data links, and other complex operational information

• Take ambiguous operational problems from first principles to deployed capability, often without an existing playbook to follow

• Own major features end to end, from system design and technical architecture through implementation, testing, and deployment

• Work closely with operators, designers, and engineers across software, autonomy, and aircraft systems

• Ship early and iterate quickly, supported by strong CI/CD, QA, and DevSecOps practices

WHAT YOU'VE DONE

• Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience

• 4+ years building complex full stack applications with real frontend and backend depth

• Strong UI/UX instincts and the tools to back them up

• Built production web interfaces with React or a comparable modern framework

WHAT SETS YOU APART

• Experience with both immediate mode (games, simulation) and retained mode UI paradigms

• A track record with performance-sensitive application development

• Familiarity with video streaming protocols

• WebGL/OpenGL experience

• Experience with geospatial applications

• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance. Active Secret clearance preferred but not required.

WHY THIS ROLE

You'll be one of the earliest engineers shaping how humans command autonomous systems at scale, work that's currently being defined in real time, by a small team, with your fingerprints on the architecture. If you want to build the future of human-swarm interaction rather than maintain someone else's, this is that seat.

ITAR requirement

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.

Swarm Aero is an equal opportunity employer. We value diverse backgrounds and experiences and make employment decisions without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, or disability.

• Meaningful equity in a high-growth defense technology company

• Competitive base salary commensurate with experience

• Medical, dental, vision, and 401k

• PTO and paid sick leave

• Monthly wellness stipend

• Daily catered lunch (office)

• Paid parental leave

• Direct impact on a critical national security mission

• A world-class team of engineers and operators solving genuinely hard problems