Senior Embedded Software Engineer
Icarus
<p>Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Forgotten Frontier</strong></span> and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.</p> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">Mission</h2> <p>Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.</p> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">What you’ll do</h2> <ul> <li>Build and ship flight-critical embedded software for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft</li> <li>Own embedded subsystems end to end: architecture, implementation, bring-up, debugging, test, and flight validation</li> <li>Write firmware for MCU-based avionics, sensors, actuators, power systems, and comms interfaces</li> <li>Integrate sensors and peripherals (IMU, GNSS, air data, magnetometer, servos, radios) and build reliable drivers and middleware</li> <li>Design robust telemetry, logging, and health monitoring to support long-duration autonomous operations</li> <li>Build test harnesses, HIL hooks, and automation that makes iteration loops faster</li> <li>Support integration, production bring-up, and flight ops in the desert</li> </ul> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">What we’re looking for</h2> <ul> <li>2+ years shipping real embedded systems (aerospace, robotics, automotive, defense, or similarly high-reliability domains)</li> <li>Strong C/C++ fundamentals and comfort working close to hardware</li> <li>Experience with RTOS or bare-metal firmware, interrupts, timing, and deterministic systems</li> <li>Experience with common embedded interfaces and protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, Ethernet)</li> <li>Strong debugging skills using scopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and real-world fault reproduction</li> <li>Comfort moving fast, owning outcomes, and troubleshooting in the field</li> </ul> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">Why Icarus</h2> <ol> <li>Meaningful equity</li> <li>Top market salary and bonuses</li> <li>Health, dental, and vision insurance</li> <li>Factory in El Segundo</li> <li>Real ownership, real hardware, real flight</li> <li>Small team, massive responsibility</li> <li>High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture</li> <li>Dream desk setup</li> <li>Daily lunch</li> <li>Unlimited celsius</li> </ol> <h2 style="color: #0000ee;">This is not a normal engineering job</h2> <ol> <li>We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead</li> <li>You will work side by side with the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster</li> <li>We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight</li> <li>We are hiring across the stack: mechanical, aerodynamics, RF, GNC, electrical, avionics, power electronics, energy storage, software, and systems</li> <li>We want builders. No hand-holding. No fluff. No fake projects. No slide decks. No sitting in meetings all day. Just raw engineering, real hardware, and real flight</li> <li>You must thrive under pressure, learn fast, trou