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Senior Embedded Software Engineer

Icarus
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Hybrid (Los Angeles, CA)$120k - $220kFull-timePosted 8mo ago

About the role

Senior embedded software engineer role at Icarus, a YC-backed company building stratospheric solar-powered aircraft. Focus on flight-critical embedded systems, end-to-end subsystem ownership, and flight validation.

Responsibilities

  • Build and ship flight-critical embedded software for long-endurance stratospheric aircraft
  • Own embedded subsystems end to end: architecture, implementation, bring-up, debugging, test, and flight validation
  • Write firmware for MCU-based avionics, sensors, actuators, power systems, and comms interfaces
  • Integrate sensors and peripherals (IMU, GNSS, air data, magnetometer, servos, radios) and build reliable drivers and middleware
  • Design robust telemetry, logging, and health monitoring to support long-duration autonomous operations
  • Build test harnesses, HIL hooks, and automation that makes iteration loops faster
  • Support integration, production bring-up, and flight ops in the desert

Qualifications

  • 2+ years shipping real embedded systems (aerospace, robotics, automotive, defense, or similarly high-reliability domains)
  • Strong C/C++ fundamentals and comfort working close to hardware
  • Experience with RTOS or bare-metal firmware, interrupts, timing, and deterministic systems
  • Experience with common embedded interfaces and protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN, Ethernet)
  • Strong debugging skills using scopes, logic analyzers, JTAG, and real-world fault reproduction
  • Comfort moving fast, owning outcomes, and troubleshooting in the field

Skills

Required:C/C++ programmingRTOS/bare-metal firmwareEmbedded interfaces/protocolsDebugging hardwareField troubleshooting

Benefits

  • Meaningful equity
  • Top market salary and bonuses
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance
  • Factory in El Segundo
  • Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
  • Small team, massive responsibility
  • High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
  • Dream desk setup
  • Daily lunch
  • Unlimited Celsius
Last updated Sep 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Icarus

Stratospheric birds for defense

Always-on intelligence and connectivity for Defense. Icarus builds autonomous, solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 feet for weeks at a time, above the clouds harnessing the power of the Sun, but never too close. Acting as a Cell Tower in the Sky, it’s the U-2 spy plane reborn in 2025, except each costs $100K and is built by the thousands. The future of warfare is persistent swarms in the Stratosphere.

hardwareswarm-roboticsaerospace
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