Senior Wireless Software Engineer, National Security

Senior Wireless Software Engineer, National Security — San Mateo, CA or Boston, MA – Full-time.

Skydio is a leading U.S. drone company and world leader in autonomous flight, combining advanced AI, high‑performance hardware and software, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a diverse range of drone users from utility inspectors to first responders and military applications.

The National Security team specializes in tailoring Skydio’s technology platform to meet the needs of defense users domestically and abroad. Reliable, high‑performance radio links are foundational to mission success: command and control, mesh/relay coordination, and resilient, high‑quality video in congested and contested RF environments.

As a Senior Wireless Software Engineer you will design, implement, and optimize radio‑link software and system‑level algorithms for mission‑critical drone communications using industrial/defense‑grade RF data links (e.g., Microhard pMDDL‑class radios). You will work closely with hardware and embedded systems teams to integrate radios over Ethernet/serial interfaces, tune link performance, build monitoring tools, and drive test and evaluation across complex real‑world scenarios.

Hybrid – 3 days a week in the San Mateo, California office or the Boston, Massachusetts office. Candidates will be expected to commute to the chosen location and may receive a relocation package if required.

• Own radio‑link performance end‑to‑end
  : improve range, throughput, latency, robustness, and reliability for command/control and video transport over RF data links.
• Integrate and control radios at the system layer
  : implement software interfaces to configure and manage radios (CLI, SNMP, REST, vendor SDKs), including link profiles, channel plans, bandwidth, power, and QoS settings.
• Build adaptive link behaviors
  : develop algorithms and policy logic for rate control, channel selection, retransmission/FEC strategy, prioritization, and application‑aware QoS under interference and mobility.
• Enable multi‑node topologies
  : support relay/mesh operations, multi‑aircraft coordination, and GCS interoperability (bridging, routing, traffic shaping).
• Drive conducted and OTA testing
  : define KPIs, build test plans, and enhance automated regression for radio performance in congested/contested environments.
• Develop tooling for observability
  : create telemetry pipelines, dashboards, and analysis scripts to interpret radio stats (RSSI/SNR, MCS/rate, PER/FER, retries, latency/jitter, link uptime).
• Debug close to hardware
  : diagnose issues across RF/antenna integration, embedded Linux networking, drivers, and application behavior using packet captures and protocol traces.
• Collaborate across disciplines
  : partner with RF, hardware, systems, autonomy, mobile, and flight test teams to align requirements and deliver field‑ready improvements.
• Support mission‑focused delivery
  : incorporate operational feedback from defense users and iterate rapidly on robustness and usability.

• Strong experience with RF data links and/or industrial radio modems (Microhard pMDDL, MANET, COFDM, microwave).
• Solid understanding of wireless link fundamentals and performance drivers (link budgets, fading, interference, antenna considerations, mobility, multipath).
• Experience configuring and tuning radios: channelization, bandwidth, TX power, MCS, FEC/ARQ, QoS/traffic prioritization.
• Strong embedded/software background in C/C++ and comfort with Python for automation and analysis.
• Experience with embedded Linux networking: routing/bridging, VLANs, multicast/unicast behavior, traffic shaping, UDP/TCP tradeoffs, and video transport considerations.
• Familiarity with radio management interfaces (CLI, serial, SNMP, REST, vendor APIs) and building robust configuration/monitoring layers.
• Hands‑on debugging with lab and field tools (spectrum analyzer, packet capture, iperf, latency/jitter measurement, telemetry correlation).
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: clean architecture, maintainable code, performance‑minded design, disciplined testing.
• Proven ability to collaborate…