Senior Platforms Engineer - HIL (AU)

Work with cutting edge AI technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world’s most challenging technical problems in the rapidly growing counter-drone sector.

Our customers operate in some of the most challenging and high-stakes environments in the world, including military organisations, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure operators, and law enforcement. Protecting airspace in these settings requires technology that performs under pressure and teams that understand what’s at stake. At DroneShield, employees work at the leading edge of counter-drone innovation, helping to address real-world security challenges as drone threats continue to evolve globally.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia, now part of the ASX200 index, DroneShield is experiencing a period of hypergrowth. Revenue has surged from A$57 million in 2024 to over A$217 million in 2025, representing growth of more than 400% year-on-year, with record profitability and cashflow. The total addressable global market for counter-drone is assessed at approximately $100 billion, and is currently at the nascent stage with much of the growth still to come, with DroneShield well positioned as a global market leader, and the only public listed pure-play business in this sector.

The company has grown from 11 employees in 2017 to over 450 staff globally today, and is on track to reach around 550 by the end of 2026. This expansion includes investment of over A$50 million annually in R&D, a global pipeline exceeding A$2.5 billion, and continuous scaling of production capacity to meet accelerating demand.

The role is based at DroneShield’s central Sydney headquarters. Overseas on-the-ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries worldwide.

About the role

As a Platforms Engineer, you will shape and evolve DroneShield’s CI/CD automation, delivery pipelines and developer experience for our Embedded Software Platform.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives on leading developers through the journey of modern software delivery and automation, is proactive and a self-starter, and enjoys building smart tooling for developers. You will combine deep technical execution with the ability to work independently and as part of a fast-paced team, taking ownership of core CI/CD, testing and delivery infrastructure.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations

• Lead the design and implementation of internal infrastructure and automated tooling, including CI/CD systems, observability tooling, and automated build pipelines for both software and FPGA artefacts.
• Improve continuous integration across both inner-loop and outer-loop development workflows.
• Design, build, and improve continuous deployment pipelines for Hardware-in-the-Loop testing.
• Extend and streamline the management and observability of DroneShield’s Hardware-in-the-Loop test infrastructure on specialised hardware, including runner management and feature development.
• Integrate tools into automated workflows to improve developer feedback on code quality, security, testing, and documentation.
• Take ownership of the embedded platform automation lifecycle and associated delivery processes.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mechatronics, IT, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5–8 years’ experience designing, maintaining, and building CI/CD pipelines using GitLab CI/CD or other modern deployment pipeline tools.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Linux systems, including embedded Linux environments.
• Experience deploying and operating observability platforms such as Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, or OpenTelemetry.
• Experience with scripting languages such as Python and Bash.
• Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical projects from design through delivery.
• Clear and effective communication skills across both engineering and non-engineering stakeholders.
• Proven ability to mentor and support other engineers.
• Experience with backend programming languages (Go, Rust, C++, etc.) is desirable.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, OCI or other modern containerisation tools is desirable.
• Experience with Linux build systems such as Yocto, Buildroot, etc. is desirable.

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.