Robotics Middleware Engineer – UAV Systems (m/w/d)

What we offer:
• Work in an international, agile team creating the future of autonomous systems
• Grow your career in a expanding and ambitious engineering team
• Build innovative products using state-of-the-art technologies in AI, robotics, and autonomy 
• Benefit from a steep learning curve and continuous development
• Enjoy team events and a strong, collaborative culture

Your mission:
Your mission will be several parts of: 
• Design, build, and harden the ROS 2 middleware layer: message schemas, QoS profiles, routing, callback prioritization, dedicated executors by criticality.
• Make data move reliably from sensors → fusion/perception → planning/actuation: time sync (PTP/NTP), timestamps, clean frames/TF, rosbag replay for debugging.
• Realize a modular and extensible sensor I/O & fusion framework: drivers/bridges, message conversions, composable pipelines.
• Integrate hardware components on Jetson/ARM: bring-up GNSS/IMU/cameras/LiDAR/radar, tune I/O buses (CSI/USB/Ethernet), manage power/thermals.
• Liaise with computer-vision and acoustics experts: expose stable interfaces, define latency budgets, and service contracts (topics, rates, QoS).
• Evaluate and select middleware options (DDS, transports, codecs, HW acceleration) under latency and reliability constraints.
• Keep track of the ROS 2/middleware ecosystem & best practices (executors, tracing, security, observability) and drive continuous improvements.
• Ensure consistently high quality of the overall detection & tracking pipeline: via end-to-end integration tests, embedded CI/CD, metrics, and alerting.

What you’ll work with 
• ROS 2 (rclcpp, lifecycle, rosbag2, tracing), DDS (QoS profiles), C++17/20
• Jetson Orin/Xavier, CUDA/TensorRT, V4L2/GStreamer
• Embedded Linux, colcon, Docker/Podman, Git (PRs/reviews), CI/CD

Your profile:
• University degree in Computer Science, Informatics, Math, Physics, etc...
• Relevant experience with C++• Interesting frameworks are for example: EIgen, Ceres, GTSAM
• Rust is a bonus
• Also great to have ROS(2), OpenCV

• Some key points for the position we would need: • C++• memory management
• multithreading (executors, callback groups; prefer lock-free where sensible)
• error/exception handling (contracts, retries, watchdogs)

• ROS 2• evaluation and use of different middlewares (CycloneDDS, Fast DDS, Connext)
• knowledge of data transfer and callback prioritization (QoS, executors, deadlines, liveliness, intra-process)

• Knowledge of other robotics frameworks (ROS 1, DDS native or custom solution, GStreamer, LCM/LCMS, ZeroMQ, etc.)
• NVIDIA Jetson• memory management (CPU/GPU, pinned memory, zero-copy)
• HW accelerators (CUDA/TensorRT/VPI — orchestrating data flows)
• sensor acquisition interfaces (CSI/MIPI, USB3, Ethernet, CAN, SPI)

Nice to have:
• RT-preempt, cgroups/CPU pinning, DDS Security, GMSL/MIPI bring-up, CAN/UDP custom protocols
• Exposure to PX4/ArduPilot/MAVLink for autopilot interfacing (optional)

What else:
• Intrinsic motivation, willing to go the extra mile, attention to detail
• Outside of the box creativity, conceptional & systematic design thinking
• Fluent in English or German
• Nationality of a NATO member nation or close ally is a must