Senior Staff Application Technology Architect – Drone & UAV Applications - Plano, United States
Originally posted 19 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
The Senior Staff Application Technology Architect serves as the technical lead for Drone and UAV applications, defining and driving end-to-end system architectures across industrial, commercial, and defense platforms. The position establishes hardware and software solutions bridging flight control, mission computing, sensing, propulsion, and ground-control interfaces with semiconductor product engineering.
What you'll do
- Define and own end-to-end system architectures for industrial and defense drone and UAV applications, spanning flight control, mission computing, sensing, propulsion, power, connectivity, and ground-control interfaces. - Drive HW/SW partitioning across MCUs, MPUs/SoCs, AI accelerators, programmable logic, sensors, connectivity devices, power electronics, and actuators. - Specify and integrate sensing solutions including IMUs, GNSS/RTK, cameras, radar, LiDAR, ultrasonic sensors, barometric sensors, and environmental sensors. - Define compute architectures for edge AI, computer vision, visual-inertial odometry, SLAM, object detection, tracking, and autonomous decision-making. - Design communication, power, and propulsion architectures incorporating battery management, motor control, telemetry, remote identification, and fail-safe safety mechanisms. - Guide system design, integration, verification, validation, and flight-test activities while collaborating with Product Groups and drone OEMs.
What you'll need
- Master’s or Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, Systems Engineering, or a related field. - 8+ years of experience in drone, UAV, aerospace, robotics, autonomous-system, or embedded-system development with system architecture and integration responsibility. - Proven track record as a System Architect, Chief Engineer, Technical Lead, or Senior Systems Engineer developing industrial or defense drone platforms. - Hands-on experience contributing to at least one UAV platform through architecture, development, system integration, verification, flight testing, and product deployment. - Deep understanding of UAV architectures including flight controllers, mission computers, avionics, propulsion, power systems, payloads, and communication links. - Strong knowledge of embedded systems, MCUs, MPUs/SoCs, real-time software, embedded Linux, RTOS platforms, and heterogeneous computing architectures. - Experience in flight control, estimation, sensor fusion, navigation, GNSS/RTK, perception, or autonomy.
Nice to have
- Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, ROS 2, MAVLink, DDS, or comparable UAV and robotics software frameworks. - Familiarity with aviation safety practices, EASA or FAA UAV regulations, Remote ID, BVLOS operations, and standards such as DO-178C, DO-254, ARP4754A, or ARP4761. - Experience with edge AI, computer vision, SLAM, visual-inertial odometry, radar or LiDAR perception, and AI accelerator platforms. - Background in electric propulsion, motor control, battery management, power conversion, or high-efficiency power electronics for aerial systems. - Experience with cybersecurity, secure communications, GNSS resilience, anti-jamming, or system-level threat analysis. - Knowledge of simulation, model-based systems engineering, software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, and digital-twin environments.
Skills: UAV, drone, system architecture, HW/SW partitioning, flight control, sensor fusion
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 61-day median for Hardware Systems Engineering roles.
Hardware Systems Engineering · SOC Architecture
|
Open roles in category
103
|
Median days open
61 d
|
Median salary
$206k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Renesas Electronics | All employers we track in this specialty (103 roles · 26 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 4 | 103 |
| Open roles in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family | 122 | 6296 · 145 employers |
| Median days open | 0 d | 61 d (−61 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $206k |
Skills observed across this category: UAV, drone, system architecture, HW/SW partitioning, flight control, sensor fusion
Who's hiring in this category
- AMD · 30 open roles · median 61 d
- Qualcomm · 21 open roles · median 49 d
- NVIDIA · 15 open roles · median 75 d
- Intel Corporation · 6 open roles · median 48 d
- Mobileye · 5 open roles · median 28 d
- Apple · 3 open roles · median 20 d
How we counted: 103 open Hardware Systems Engineering (SOC Architecture) roles from 26 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Software, Firmware & Systems family row. Figures refresh nightly.