Staff Software Engineer - GCS Team

Flytrex runs drone food delivery at scale in US cities. The GCS (Ground Control Station) team builds the brain of the operation: the system that takes an order, plans a flight, coordinates airspace, and safely delivers a package to a backyard, thousands of times a week. We're scaling from a handful of sites to a national network, and the systems need to scale with us.
About the role
This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You'll be one of the most senior engineers in the company, setting the direction for how the GCS is built, and writing a meaningful share of the hardest code yourself.

Own the architecture of a distributed, safety-critical, real-time system, and evolve it for 10x the flight volume without 10x the incidents.
Lead the technically hardest projects end-to-end: from a vague business need, through design and cross-team alignment, to production.
Raise the bar for the whole team: design reviews, code reviews, engineering standards, and testing strategy. Make everyone around you better.
Be the person on call when it counts. When a production issue is deep and unclear, you're the one who gets to the root cause and closes the loop.
Partner directly with product, operations, hardware, and regulatory to turn constraints into good engineering decisions.

Why here
Ownership without bureaucracy. A small, strong team with a mission you can point at in the sky. If you want to shape how autonomous delivery gets built, rather than maintain someone else's decisions, this is the role.

Requirements:

8+ years building backend or distributed systems, including several years leading complex projects with real production impact.
You've designed systems that had to be correct, not just up. Experience with safety-critical, real-time, or physical-world systems is a strong plus.
Deep engineering judgment. You know when to build, when to simplify, and when to say no.
You lead through influence and example, not title. People want to work with you because you make hard things clear.
Direct, no-ego communicator. You give and take feedback well, and you're comfortable being wrong in public and fixing it fast.