Senior Software Engineer, Merlin Labs
Flight Autonomy
Aviation tech for fully autonomous flight
Open for applications
Aviation tech for fully autonomous flight
101-200 employees
Open for applications
101-200 employees
Company mission
To build the AI-powered operating system of record that allows aircraft, large and small, to fly autonomously.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace, or related field
- 3-5 years of embedded or flight software development experience within a DO-178C environment
- Strong proficiency in C/C++ for embedded, real-time, safety-critical systems
- Understanding of avionics protocols and architectures (ARINC 429, ARINC 653, CAN, MIL-STD-1553, Ethernet)
- Experience designing and implementing software for real-time operating systems (RTOS), with strong knowledge of low level topics such as device driver development, interrupt handling, memory management, and performance estimation
- Strong experience with requirements management, including authoring high-quality software requirements, maintaining traceability, and using tools such as DOORS, Jama, or Polarion
- Experience with hardware/software integration, debugging on target hardware, and use of analysis tools (logic analyzers, bus analyzers)
- Experience with Python scripting, tool automation and test automation
- Experience with CI/CD environments and automated code quality checks
Desirable
- Background integrating software across diverse avionics platforms or multicore systems
- Familiarity with flight controls, autonomy, GNC, or aircraft certification efforts
- Exposure to MathWorks tools and Model-Based Development workflows (DO-331)
- Prior involvement in SOI audits or FAA/EASA certification programs
What the job involves
- Merlin Labs is seeking a Senior Software Engineer with strong experience in DO-178C flight software development and avionics integration
- In this role, you will design and implement safety-critical autonomous flight software, integrate it with avionics hardware platforms, and contribute to certification-ready development processes
- Develop, integrate, and verify flight-critical software using C/C++ following DO-178C processes
- Build application-level flight software and ensure robust integration with underlying avionics hardware interfaces
- Create, maintain and review software requirements, code and certification artifacts adhering to certification plans and standards
- Troubleshoot integration issues on test benches and aircraft
- Develop automated workflows for software integration and build processes
- Collaborate with engineers from cross functional groups such as systems, safety, hardware, flight controls and test to ensure product and program level needs are met
- Contribute to planning and execution of SOI audits and certification reviews
- Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for software requirements, architecture, build processes and design decisions
- Support hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), processor-in-the-loop (PIL), and flight testing activities
Our take
Companies like Xwing and Reliable Robotics are retrofitting aircrafts for full autonomy, however, Merlin Labs is taking a different route. Rather than building its own aircradt, it's developing the Merlin Pilot - an autonomous flight system designed to integrate into existing fleets. And this systems-first approach is gaining rel traction across commercial and defense sectors.
Instead of developing an autonomous vehicle, the company has designed configurable software that can be fitted into any plane to turn it into one. It’s already received certification from the FAA in the US, and the CAA in New Zealand; now, the goal is to get it fitted into large commercial aircraft to help reduce crew sizes. Ultimately, Merlin Labs is hoping its software will be used to fly smaller aircraft completely autonomously.
Providing a way for non-autonomous aircraft to be repurposed is a neat and attractive solution: costly aircraft needn’t be scrapped, human co-pilots don’t require retraining, and there’s a wealth of existing commercial and private applications for the software. So it’s an astute way of manoeuvring ahead of well-funded competition. Investors are paying attention, as are top-tier clients: Merlin has partnered with the likes of Ameriflight, the U.S. Air Force, and Dynamic Aviation, and pulled in millions of dollars of funding. It will need it: the competition is fierce.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
55% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Apr 2023
$1m
GRANT
Jul 2022
$105m
SERIES B
Total funding: $170.8m
Company HQ
Leather District, Boston, MA
Leadership
Matt George
(CEO)Served in an OPC role at The White House, then on the Senior Advisory Board at Boston 2024. Went on to found and lead tech company Bridj.
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