Software Engineer (Generalist)

About the role

Icarus was founded on the belief that the Stratosphere is the Forgotten Frontier and that reclaiming it will define the next era of aerospace and what is possible from the sky. We build solar-powered aircraft that fly at 60,000 ft for weeks at a time, delivering persistent, affordable, and scalable presence from this layer of the atmosphere.

Mission

Re-establish and maintain dominance in the Stratosphere.

Levels

We are hiring at Level I, Level II, and Level III through this posting. Your level will be determined during the interview process based on your technical skills, relevant experience, and demonstrated scope of ownership.

What you’ll do

- Build and own end-to-end software systems that power flight operations, autonomy, and user interaction

- Develop mission-critical backend services for telemetry, command and control, data ingestion, and analytics

- Build clean, fast frontends for ground control, monitoring, and operator workflows

- Design APIs and data pipelines that connect aircraft, ground stations, and users

- Work closely with embedded, avionics, GNC, RF, and operations teams to ship tightly integrated systems

- Support flight test, field ops, and rapid iteration using real flight data

- Take systems from concept to production with speed and ownership

What we’re looking for

- 2+ years building real full-stack software in production

- Strong backend experience (Python, Go, Rust, or similar)

- Strong frontend experience (React, TypeScript, or similar)

- Experience designing APIs, databases, and distributed systems

- Comfort working close to hardware, real-time systems, or operational data

- Ability to move fast, own outcomes, and debug under pressure

Why Icarus

- Meaningful equity

- Top market salary and bonuses

- Health, dental, and vision insurance

- Factory in El Segundo

- Real ownership, real hardware, real flight

- Small team, massive responsibility

- High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture

- Dream desk setup

- Daily lunch

- Unlimited celsius

This is not a normal engineering job

- We are pioneers, not corporate managers. Icarus deliberately optimizes for a high signal (engineers) to noise (management) ratio, where engineering, flight, and execution matter more than process, politics, or management overhead

- You will work side by side with the CEO and a small team of world-class builders. You will own your subsystem end to end. Design it. Build it. Break it. Fix it. Validate it in the desert. Fly it. Then do it again, faster

- We expect full extreme ownership. This is a high-trust, no-BS team, and everyone pulls their weight