lead software engineer (m/w/d)

why this role matters coera's core safety intelligence platform is under active build: a certifiable runtime, a reference integration targeting EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230, and the toolchain the next 8 to 12 engineers will inherit. As the lead software engineer, working directly alongside the CTO, you own that build from first commit through first certified release.

What You Will Own

• Architect and build the core of coera's safety intelligence platform, from runtime up through integration and tooling.
• Ship the first certifiable release to the first customer deployment, against a functional safety assessment (SIL2 / PLd) under EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230.
• Set the engineering practices and toolchain the rest of the team inherits: MISRA and AUTOSAR discipline, static analysis, CI, simulation-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, telemetry, observability.
• Work closely with the QNX RTOS, safety, and cybersecurity engineers to make coera's first product certifiable end to end.
• Own the boundary between product and integration. Make the right call on what coera builds, what it buys, and what it leaves behind.
• Attract and shape the next hires on the core engineering team.

What We Look For Must have

• A track record of shipping production systems software, with at least one stint setting technical direction at an early-stage or deep-tech company.
• Production C++17+ at senior level. Deterministic real-time fluency on embedded Linux, PREEMPT_RT, or an RTOS (QNX, VxWorks, Zephyr).
• MISRA C / MISRA C++ / AUTOSAR C++14 discipline, and hands-on with at least one of Polyspace, Helix QAC, LDRA, Parasoft C/C++test, or Vector CAST.
• Safety-critical lifecycle fluency: V-model, FMEA / FMEDA, FTA, traceability, evidence packaging.
• End-to-end platform chops: CMake, CI, containerisation, simulation-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, telemetry, observability.

Strong signals

• Shipped software to a functional safety assessment (SIL2, PLd, or ASIL-B) to notified-body sign-off, with your signature on the safety case.
• Multimodal sensor fusion fundamentals: stereo depth, time-of-flight, LWIR thermal; Kalman / EKF / UKF; intrinsic and extrinsic calibration; time sync.
• CUDA / Jetson deployment for safety-classified workloads, or equivalent on automotive-grade SoCs (Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride, NVIDIA DRIVE, NXP S32, Renesas R-Car).
• Founding or hire-#1 experience at a previous deep-tech startup, ideally one that reached Series A on the platform you built.
• Formal methods or deterministic runtime literacy: Frama-C, model-checked code.

Bonus

• Open-source contributions that other engineers actually use
• German or Farsi in addition to English.

What We Offer A core team role with real ownership over what we build and how. Direct line to deployments with leading robotics partners from day one. Post-thesis, pre-scale: the window where the work you do actually compounds.

All employees are offered the opportunity to participate in the company's long-term success through our employee incentive plan (EIP). The specific terms of your stake are agreed individually as part of your compensation package.

How We Work Small, senior, deliberate. We write more than we meet. We ship the core of the product before we ship the edges. We care about craft in code, policy design, and how we engage with customers. The bar is high, and the stakes are high: the safety layer of the robotics revolution is being built now, and we intend to be the one that defines it.

process and small print

• Hiring process. A short intro call, a technical conversation tailored to the role, a deeper-dive session (onsite or remote), and an offer. Typical time from application to offer is two to three weeks. We move fast when we meet the right person.
• Visa and relocation. We support visa sponsorship and relocation within Europe, where it makes the difference between hiring the right person and not.
• Equal opportunity. We hire on the strength of the work. We do not discriminate on the basis of ethnic origin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age, sexual identity, or anything else unrelated to the job. We explicitly welcome applications from people with disabilities and give them equal consideration.
• Your data. We process your application data under the GDPR to run this hiring process. If we do not hire you, we keep your data for up to six months afterwards so we can respond to any questions or legal claims, then delete it. If you would like us to keep your details longer for future roles, we will ask for your separate consent. You can ask us to delete your data at any time. Find our privacy policy here: https://coera.jobs.personio.com/privacy-policy

About Us coera is building the universal safety intelligence layer for human-robot coexistence, redefining what safety means in the age of physical AI. Robotics is advancing faster than the safety systems meant to support it. coera closes that gap with multimodal sensing and deterministic guardrails: retrofittable, embeddable, controller-agnostic. Safety is not a checkpoint or a constraint. It is the capability that lets intelligent machines operate freely wherever people do.