Senior Embedded Imaging Software Engineer

Lead end-to-end embedded imaging development for Urban Sky’s electro-optical and infrared payloads, delivering low-latency, deterministic image processing from sensor bring-up to command-and-control data paths.

Responsibilities

• Own embedded firmware for EO and IR payloads, including sensor bring-up, driver development, and edge compute on NVIDIA Jetson platforms
• Integrate cameras and sensors over PCIe, MIPI/CSI, and USB; develop board-support packages for custom carrier boards, system-on-modules, and companion microcontrollers
• Own the L0 image processing pipeline running in CUDA at the edge, including debayering, white balance, gamma, and camera/lens correction applied to raw frames before any codec
• Implement IR-specific processing: non-uniformity correction (NUC), bad-pixel replacement, and radiometric calibration
• Develop multi-frame super-resolution and related computational imaging capabilities
• Implement imagery metadata using KLV/MISB so each frame includes accurate pointing, position, and time
• Architect high-throughput data paths across the vehicle, with PCIe as a first-class focus, plus routing infrastructure for imagery, telemetry, and C2 across satellite, tactical-radio, and IP links
• Optimize for latency, throughput, and determinism, balancing pipeline compute against onboard ML workloads sharing the same CUDA resources
• Integrate payload firmware with the gimbal and motion-control stack, consuming pointing and autonomy commands from the broader payload software architecture
• Develop and maintain optical calibrations for EO/IR payloads, including lens distortion modeling, vignetting/flat-field correction, and MTF/sharpness characterization
• Implement motion and temporal compensation, including frame-to-frame registration, stabilization, and temporal filtering, to maximize effective image quality from a moving platform

Requirements

• Experience building end-to-end camera/imaging systems from sensor to downstream consumer
• Hands-on image processing pipeline experience (debayering, calibration, correction) with CUDA or other GPU-accelerated processing
• Optical calibration and characterization experience, including distortion modeling, vignetting correction, and MTF/sharpness measurement, plus building corresponding correction steps for a processing pipeline
• Familiarity with motion/temporal compensation techniques (registration, stabilization, temporal filtering) for imaging from moving platforms
• 5+ years developing embedded firmware in C/C++ for embedded Linux and/or bare-metal/RTOS systems
• Hands-on experience shipping on NVIDIA Jetson or comparable embedded Linux/SoC platforms
• Deep experience moving high-rate data over PCIe, including driver, DMA, and endpoint/root-complex level work
• Solid grounding in networking, data routing, and command-and-control infrastructure
• Strong hardware debugging skills and comfort working from schematics
• Must be US Citizen or Permanent Resident
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a US security clearance (active clearance is a plus)
• Must be located near Denver, CO or willing to relocate; onsite at Denver headquarters (4800 Race St)
• Travel expected to support field events, exercises, and customer engagements

Technologies

• CUDA
• NVIDIA Jetson
• PCIe
• MIPI/CSI
• USB
• C/C++
• Embedded Linux
• Bare-metal/RTOS
• KLV/MISB
• gimbal
• satellite
• tactical-radio
• IP links

Benefits

• Stock Options
• Medical, Vision and Dental
• Flexible PTO
• Cell Phone Bill Stipend

Nice-to-Haves / Preferred Skills

• IR/thermal imaging experience, including NUC and radiometric calibration
• GStreamer, V4L2, or other imaging/video pipeline frameworks
• Computational imaging techniques (super-resolution, stacking, HDR)
• Defense imagery and metadata standards (MISB/KLV, STANAG); defense or mission-critical development experience
• FPGA workflows or high-speed serial interfaces (SerDes, Aurora, MIPI)
• Experience with optics and optical hardware
• Experience with multi-sensor and multispectral fusion, including co-registering and combining imagery across sensors and bands into fused data products in partnership with downstream data teams

Location, Type, and Pay

• Onsite: Denver, CO (4800 Race St)
• Employment: Full-time, Salaried
• Salary: USD 140,000 - 180,000 per year