Senior Software Engineer, Dropship and Cargo

Employer description

About Pyka
Pyka’s goal is to provide society with a new form of safe, clean, and cost-effective transportation enabled by autonomous electric aviation.
To get there, we’re taking a different approach than most. We’re applying our technologies to every industry where autonomous electric aircraft can be useful, starting with the highest value and most dangerous jobs. In doing so, we’re building game-changing products manufactured at scale, while perfecting the safety, reliability, and capabilities of our autonomy engine and electric propulsion systems. 
We design, develop and manufacture an ecosystem of technologies including proprietary flight control software, avionics, high power density motors, motor controllers, batteries, and custom carbon-fiber composite airframes.
Today, we supply autonomous electric aircraft for cargo transport and crop protection to real-world customers across four separate continents and have secured industry-first regulatory approvals from the FAA. Our cargo aircraft enables remote connectivity, enhances express delivery networks, and ensures fast and reliable shipping of critical supplies to areas in need. Our crop protection aircraft offers agricultural services providers and farmers an autonomous tool to make aerial application safer, more precise, and less harmful to surrounding environments. Both vehicles are highly economical to operate, easy to deploy, and significantly reduce CO2 emissions in their respective industries. 
What you work on at Pyka makes people’s lives better now and brings the future of electric aviation one step closer each day. 

Role Overview
Pyka is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to be the software owner of our Dropship and Cargo programs. The software problems in these programs span the stack: path planning over long ranges, controls for a new airframe, integration of new sensors, engine control and state-of-charge management on a hybrid powertrain, and incorporating weather into how a mission is planned and flown. You will be responsible for the software behavior of these aircraft as a whole — what it needs to do, how the pieces fit together, and whether it is ready to fly — and you will be the engineer the Dropship team comes to when software is the open question on their side.
 
Some of the current and future projects you will likely contribute to include:
Path planning for long-range cargo missions that accounts for energy state, winds aloft, and weather along the route
Energy management on a hybrid powertrain: engine control, state-of-charge policy, and how the aircraft trades power against range, payload, and reserve
Flight controls and handling for a new airframe, from simulation through flight test
Integrating new sensors and payload systems, and defining the software needs before the hardware is fixed
Turning operational feedback from cargo flights into requirements for the next iteration of the aircraft
Defining what mission planning and ground tools need to expose to operators flying these aircraft