Lead, Software Application

About the role

Who we are

Neros is a defense technology company rebuilding America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture high-performance unmanned systems that are tested in combat, iterated at startup speed, and built at massive scale. Our team culture is fast, hands-on, and obsessed with closing the gap between design and deployment.

As drones transform the character of warfare, Neros is delivering the systems the West needs to compete on the modern battlefield and deter the adversaries of democracy. We’re hiring engineers, operators, and builders who want to move fast, take on extreme ownership, and get capability into the hands of warfighters in months, not years.

What you will be doing

Neros builds first-person-view drones for the modern battlefield. As a Lead, Software Application Engineer, you will own the development of applications — the web, desktop, and Android tools and backend services our operators and engineers use to plan missions, configure the system, and record and analyze flight data. You will own the development, quality, and delivery across both, and grow the team behind them.

Responsibilities

- Lead and grow the team across application and backend development — hiring, mentorship, and performance management

- Own application development end to end using modern cross-platform stacks spanning Windows, Linux, macOS, and web

- Own the backend behind them — services and APIs, data pipelines into our analytics datalake, identity and tenancy, and software update

- Build for offline: our tools run with or without a connection to the backend, and offline is a normal operating state rather than a failure to handle

- Make the hard architecture calls — front-end architecture, build vs. adopt, data model, tenancy and security, local vs. backend state

- Set and uphold engineering and operational quality — code review, testing, CI/CD, observability, on-call

- Stay hands-on: review code and own architecture, not just process

You should have the following

- Has led a software team as a hands-on manager — owning both people management and technical direction

- Strong background in application development (modern web and cross-platform desktop) and the backend behind it (services, APIs, data, identity, CI/CD, observability) — you can lead and review across both

- Experience building applications that work offline — local-first state, syncing when a connection returns, and staying fully usable while disconnected

- Strong judgment on application architecture, build vs. adopt, data modeling, and security trade-offs

- Able to operate as the interface between the team and leadership — managing expectations upward and clearing blockers

- Player-coach: still writes code and reviews PRs, and is technically credible enough to own architecture across front-end, service, and data

Nice to Have