Staff Engineer, Software, GCS - C++

Location: On-site in the United States: San Diego, California; Dallas, Texas; Washington, DC; or Boston, Massachusetts. Travel to test sites and mission events is typically 10–20% of the year.

Company

hirify.global develops autonomy and command-and-control technologies for complex, multi-domain unmanned missions.

What you will do

• Design, develop, and optimize Ground Control Station (GCS) and Command & Control (C2) software for mission planning, real-time control, video streaming, telemetry visualization, and post-mission debriefing.
• Customize and extend QGroundControl and Qt/C++ frameworks for custom vehicle protocols and multi-agent operations.
• Own the architecture and technical direction of major GCS features, including UI/UX layouts, client/server interfaces, APIs, ICDs, and interface contracts.
• Prepare, configure, validate, and release mission-ready ground stations while coordinating hardware/software compatibility and field integration.
• Debug radio links, payload controls, telemetry streams, memory leaks, UI responsiveness, and network latency during operationally representative testing and live missions.
• Mentor engineers, participate in hiring and onboarding, and collaborate with autonomy, perception, flight operations, and external integration partners.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 7+ years of related experience with a bachelor’s degree, 6+ years with a master’s degree, or 4+ years with a PhD.
• Strong C++ experience building complex, multithreaded, or latency-sensitive desktop applications; experience with Qt/QML and QGroundControl or comparable ground-station software.
• Experience with backend or full-stack development in C/C++, Python, TypeScript, or Go, including service orchestration, command/status interfaces, and data pipelines.
• Deep knowledge of networked and distributed systems, UDP/TCP, binary protocols, reliable messaging, pub-sub/IPC middleware, and serialization or IDL tooling.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance, plus experience owning major systems from architecture through field delivery and mentoring engineers.

Nice to have

• GIS, map-rendering engines, and 2D/3D spatial data visualization experience.
• Video streaming and multimedia frameworks such as RTSP, WebRTC, GStreamer, H.264, or H.265.
• Telemetry analysis, log parsing, interactive playback/debrief systems, or containerized C2 deployments.
• Experience with MAVLink, STANAG 4586, A-GRA, UCI, OMS, or other platform-control and DoD C2 standards.
• Active Secret or Top Secret clearance and experience working with flight operators, pilots, or military stakeholders.

Culture & Benefits

• Full-time employee position within the Hivemind Solutions Division’s Flight System Integration department.
• Hands-on work supporting flight tests, range exercises, on-water trials, customer demonstrations, and integration events.
• Close collaboration with autonomy, perception, flight operations, platform integrators, C2 providers, and vehicle vendors.
• Use of AI-assisted development tools for software design, implementation, debugging, testing, and code review with engineer-owned technical decisions.