Software Development Engineer

At Radical, we’re embarking on a mission to revolutionize how we connect and observe our planet. Our focus is on taking aerospace technology to new heights – literally. We are building high‑altitude solar‑powered aircraft designed to fly continuously in the stratosphere.

We are assembling a dynamic team of engineers and builders ready to propel our technology to the next level. If you’re passionate about advancing innovative technology and love challenging engineering projects, Radical is the startup for you. Join us and push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Core responsibilities

As a Software Development Engineer at Radical you will build and run the software we use to fly and operate our aircraft, the ground control software, the fleet and operations tools, and the infrastructure behind them. You will be based at our office in Cambridge, UK, collaborating closely with our small, agile, and interdisciplinary team.

Build and maintain the ground control software, a full‑stack web app for live telemetry, 3D and map‑based monitoring, mission planning, weather forecasting and commanding. It runs live, replayed, and synthetic flights through one stack, and handles aircraft logs end to end into the analysis pipeline behind it.

Build the flight‑operations software used to plan, run, and sign off on flights. This includes checklists, decision gates, and weather and operational‑data integrations, with an auditable record of every flight.

Grow the fleet‑management software that lets us operate more than one aircraft at once: multi‑aircraft monitoring, coordination, and the ground architecture behind it.

Provision our ground stations as code and keep our infrastructure running: compute nodes, cloud services, CI/CD, and developer tooling. Keep every aircraft flying a known‑good, verified set of software through tight release and version control.

Support flight‑test campaigns hands‑on in the field, keeping software, communications, and logging working throughout operations.

Required skills:

3+ years building and shipping production software, through work, open‑source, or your own projects. A CS or software‑engineering degree, or equivalent practical experience.

Strong full‑stack web development. Python on the backend, modern TypeScript with React (or comparable) on the frontend.

Designing and working with APIs and real‑time data streams (REST and WebSockets).

Comfortable owning deployment and operations across Linux, Docker, CI/CD, cloud (AWS) and on‑premise.

Fluency with AI‑assisted (agentic) coding tools, and the judgment to review and verify what they produce.

Preferred (but not required) skills:

Real‑world experience working with drones, robots, or other uncrewed systems.

Real‑time telemetry, streaming data, or operator‑facing monitoring and control tools (ground control stations, robotics, vehicles, or similar).

Building software for operations teams: checklists, workflow and sign‑off, audit trails, or other safety‑or process‑critical tooling.

A solid grasp of networking and structured or binary data protocols.

Building data or logging pipelines and working with large datasets.

Infrastructure‑as‑code and reproducible, version‑pinned provisioning.

Radical is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other protected status. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply, and we strive to create a workplace that reflects the diversity of our community and promotes inclusion. We believe that diversity and inclusion are essential to fostering innovation, collaboration, and success, and we are dedicated to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all employees.

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