Software Engineer, Real-Time Systems (Early Career)

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.
Legion's Command & Control platform lets a single operator plan, direct, and execute missions across a networked swarm of heterogeneous aircraft, in real time, over intermittent comms, at a scale nobody else in the industry is attempting. That means distributed state under unreliable networks, dense telemetry moving fast enough to strain anything you've built before, and interfaces for a problem space that barely has prior art. You'll work across the stack, wherever the hard problem is that week.
What You'll Do
Build and ship features in the C2 system that directs swarms of heterogeneous aircraft
Work on systems that hold state and stay responsive when comms degrade or drop entirely
Move between the interface layer and the services behind it, following the problem rather than a job description
Prototype new ways to represent and control vehicle telemetry, sensor data, and scheduling
Take features end to end, from a rough problem statement through design, implementation, and deployment
Ship early and often, backed by strong CI/CD, QA, and DevSecOps
What We're Looking For
Degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent self-taught depth
Real strength in fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, concurrency, networking, systems
Evidence you've built something hard because you wanted to. A renderer, an emulator, a game, a compiler, a multiplayer server, a robotics project, a serious open source contribution. We care more about what you've built than where you worked
Comfort writing code at more than one layer of the stack, and no strong attachment to staying at one
Willingness to work on problems where the right answer isn't known yet, and to be wrong in public on the way to finding it
What Sets You Apart
Competitive programming background (ICPC, IOI, Codeforces, USACO, Putnam)
Game development, game jams, engine work, or simulation
Performance-sensitive work: profiling, frame budgets, memory pressure, running on constrained hardware
Real-time or distributed systems experience: multiplayer netcode, streaming, pub/sub, robotics middleware
Graphics: WebGL, OpenGL, Vulkan, shaders
Working fluency in Go, C++, or Rust
Familiarity with video streaming protocols or geospatial applications
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.
What We Offer
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

Work arrangement
Yes