Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is a publicly funded research institute, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It is home to a diverse community of leading scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers from across the globe, transforming problems and roadblocks into pioneering research and technology prototypes that help move society ahead.
Role Overview
As an experienced Senior SW Engineer with expertise in Qualcomm-based Mission Computer systems, your leading role will be in designing, implementing, and maintaining software solutions across NXP-based PX4 flight controllers and Qualcomm-based mission computers. You will optimize solutions for reliability, safety, and performance in complex UAV operations.
Industry / Domain
Autonomous Systems / Robotics / Defense UxV / Secure Computing
Functional Activities
Autonomy Software Development:
- Own the architecture, design, and implementation of autonomous applications on Qualcomm-based platforms, spanning perception, sensor fusion, planning, and navigation for UxV systems.
- Define technical direction and oversee development of ROS2-based nodes and middleware frameworks to support scalable, modular autonomy stacks across heterogeneous compute platforms.
- Drive optimization strategies for GPU and DSP-accelerated AI/ML workloads, ensuring real-time inference, multi-sensor fusion, and deterministic decision-making under SWaP constraints.
Qualcomm-based SOC Misison Computer:
- Understanding of Qualcomm IQ9-based secure boot implementation, including boot chain validation, trusted firmware stages, secure bootloader handoff, image authentication, and production boot-lock enforcement.
- Hands-on awareness of platform security features such as hardware root of trust, key provisioning, device identity, secure storage, encryption services, anti-rollback protection, and secure debug control.
- Understanding of fuse programming / fuse burning processes for production devices, including root-of-trust hash provisioning, lifecycle state transition, OEM lock state, and secure manufacturing controls.
- Ability to support secure platform bring-up, validation, and troubleshooting across boot, encryption, provisioning, OTA update, and manufacturing test workflow.
System Integration and Middleware:
- Implement secure communication bridges between autonomy stack, flight controller, and ground systems.
- Develop tools and APIs for efficient data exchange across mission-critical components.
- Support multi-sensor integration (camera, LiDAR, GNSS, IMU) with ROS2 middleware.
Security and Reliability:
- Architect and enforce end-to-end security frameworks for UxV platforms, covering secure boot, hardware root of trust (RoT), and chain-of-trust provisioning on Qualcomm SoCs.
- Implement identity management and access control for mission software deployments.
- Conduct threat modeling, vulnerability assessments, and apply secure coding practices (ISO 27001, DO-326A).
- In charge of threat modeling and attack surface analysis for autonomous UxV systems, addressing vulnerabilities across communication links (RF, GNSS, MAVLink/DDS), compute nodes, and sensor interfaces.
Engineering Process Optimization:
- Implement telemetry, logging, and diagnostics for real-time system monitoring.
- Define and enforce SDLC best practices, coding guidelines, and documentation standards for the autonomy stack.
- Define KPIs (deployment cycle time, test coverage, system uptime, security incidents) to track engineering efficiency.
Necessary Knowledge and Experience
- 8+ years of experience in robotics, autonomous systems, or safety-critical UxV platform development, preferably in defense or aerospace environments.
- Proficiency in real-time embedded systems and Python for automation, AI/ML workflows, testing, and data pipelines.
- Strong experience with ROS2, XRCE-DDS, MAVLink, and modular autonomy stack architecture on Qualcomm-based mission computer platforms.
- Hands-on experience with Qualcomm SoC platform bring-up, including BSP integration, Linux/Yocto environments, boot chain validation, peripheral enablement, driver integration, and platform debugging.
- Understanding of Qualcomm security features, including secure boot, hardware root of trust, TEE, key provisioning, encrypted storage, anti-rollback, secure debug control, and lifecycle-state enforcement.
- Experience with production security workflows, including fuse burning, root-of-trust provisioning, device identity, factory flashing, secure provisioning, and manufacturing test procedures.
- Hands-on experience with GPU, DSP, NPU, or AI accelerator-based workloads for sensor fusion, real-time inference, and SWaP-constrained AI/ML deployment.
- Experience implementing embedded cybersecurity measures, including encrypted communications, sandboxing, access control, threat modeling, secure OTA, and secure coding practices.
- Familiarity with ISO 27001, DO-326A, DevOps/CI/CD, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, automated testing, and cross-functional integration.
- Strong English communication skills and ability to work with software, hardware, security, manufacturing, QA, and systems teams under pressure.
Education and Certification Requirements
- MSc preferred / BSc (minimum) in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or related field.
- Nice-to-have: familiarity with TypeScript/JavaScript for front-end interfaces and control dashboards; experience with cross-organization system integration at scale.
At TII, we help society to overcome its biggest hurdles through a rigorous approach to scientific discovery and inquiry, using state-of-the-art facilities and collaboration with leading international institutions. Our rigorous discovery and inquiry-based approach helps to forge new and disruptive breakthroughs in advanced materials, autonomous robotics, cryptography, digital security, directed energy, quantum computing and secure systems.