Principal Embedded Software Engineer

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Full Time Employee Full-Time Sterling, VA, US

4 days ago Requisition

Position Title:Principal Embedded Software Engineer
Requisition :1784
Position Location:Sterling, VA
Position

Reports To:

Manager, Space Electronic Systems
Supervises Others:No

At Trident Systems, we believe that strong engineering principles are fundamental to driving innovation and solving complex problems. We promote a culture characterized by rigorous engineering practices and a commitment to continuous improvement. This is achieved by leveraging our organization's collective expertise through collaborative development processes, which include thorough design and peer reviews. We can deliver innovative, high-performance solutions that meet our customers' evolving requirements by integrating our specialized knowledge in aerospace electronic systems with appropriately scaled development methodologies.

We are a mission partner supporting DoD, Intelligence Community, and Civil space customers. We develop complex, radiation effects mitigated, designs that balance competing requirements in modern space programs, delivering cutting-edge solutions that enable our customers to achieve more in space.

Position Summary

The Principal Embedded Software Engineer serves as a highly experienced individual contributor responsible for embedded software architecture, implementation, and technical execution across advanced aerospace computing platforms and supporting engineering systems. This role focuses on embedded Linux platforms, board support packages (BSPs), low-level platform software, hardware interfaces, device drivers, boot architecture, and system‑level debugging across software and hardware boundaries.

This is a hands‑on engineering role intended for a deeply experienced embedded software engineer who thrives in complex hardware‑centric environments and contributes through strong technical execution, sound engineering judgment, architectural rigor, and mentorship of other engineers.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Architect, design, and implement software across embedded aerospace computing platforms and supporting engineering systems.
• Define clean software‑hardware interfaces across processors, FPGAs, peripherals, storage devices, networking subsystems, and platform infrastructure.
• Architect robust boot strategies, software update mechanisms, telemetry frameworks, fault handling, recovery strategies, and maintainable runtime software architectures.
• Lead Linux BSP development, platform bring‑up, driver integration, hardware enablement, and low‑level software architecture activities.
• Develop, review, and optimize software for performance‑critical paths including storage, networking, DMA, PCIe, interrupt‑driven I/O, and embedded communications.
• Diagnose and resolve complex technical issues spanning software, firmware, FPGA, operating system, drivers, and hardware interactions.
• Establish and reinforce strong software engineering practices including design reviews, code reviews, reproducible builds, release discipline, traceability, CI/CD workflows, and technical documentation.
• Mentor software engineers through technical guidance, design collaboration, architecture reviews, and hands‑on engineering support.
• Support technical trade studies, architecture decisions, requirements decomposition, and customer technical discussions.
• Partner closely with FPGA, electrical, systems, product, and test engineering teams to deliver integrated technical solutions.
• Support off‑site integration activities or travel, as needed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical discipline, or equivalent practical engineering experience.
• 9+ years of related experience (OR 7+ years with a master’s degree)
• Embedded software engineering experience with significant delivery on complex hardware‑based systems.
• Experience in embedded software architecture, low‑level software development,…