Embedded Systems Engineer

Company Overview

Swarm Defense Technologies designs and builds small unmanned aircraft systems for the U.S. Department of Defense. We are headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, where electrical design, firmware, machining, assembly, and flight test all happen under one roof. Our current work is focused on moving production-ready small UAS from prototype to volume delivery on compressed program timelines, and we are building the engineering and manufacturing team to do it.

Job Summary

Swarm Defense is hiring an Embedded Systems Engineer to develop the firmware that runs our aircraft and ground equipment: flight controller integration, battery management, motor control, lighting, and communication links. You will write firmware in C/C++ on STM32-class microcontrollers and integrate it with custom PCBs designed in-house.

The job spans bootloaders and device drivers up through control loops and PX4 integration. You will be testing your code on real aircraft, working shoulder to shoulder with the electronics engineer during board bring-up, and building the tooling that lets the production line flash and verify firmware at volume.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, test, and maintain embedded firmware in C/C++ for STM32 and similar ARM Cortex-M MCUs.
• Integrate with and extend our PX4-based flight control stack.
• Implement device drivers and control loops over SPI, I2C, UART, and CAN.
• Build robust communication over MAVLink and DroneCAN/UAVCAN.
• Support board bring-up and hardware verification with the electronics team.
• Implement secure boot, signed firmware updates, and field update mechanisms.
• Debug, profile, and harden firmware for reliability in field conditions.
• Develop production flashing, test, and provisioning tools.
• Participate in flight test and post-flight log analysis.

Requirements

• BS in Electrical, Computer, or Software Engineering or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• 3+ years writing embedded C/C++ that shipped in a product.
• Experience with bare-metal and RTOS development (NuttX, FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or similar).
• Working knowledge of embedded communication protocols (SPI, I2C, UART, CAN).
• Hands-on hardware debugging: oscilloscope, logic analyzer, JTAG/SWD.
• Solid understanding of microcontroller architecture, interrupts, DMA, and timing.

Bonus Points

• Direct PX4 or ArduPilot development experience.
• STM32 HAL/LL and NuttX familiarity.
• Experience with secure boot, cryptographic signing, or anti-tamper requirements.
• Ability to read schematics and participate in PCB design review.

Benefits

• Health Insurance: We cover 100% of health insurance premiums for our employees.
• 401(k): Company retirement plan with employer match.

Swarm Defense is an early-stage defense company, and the pace is set by what the mission requires. The work is hands-on with engineers building what they design, testing it on real aircraft, and owning the result. 

We reward initiative and give people ownership of their area. If you want to see your work fly within weeks and you are comfortable operating without a large support structure around you, this is the right environment.