Real-Time C/C++ Software Engineer

MIT Lincoln Laboratory Associate Staff provide critical multi-domain through expert multi-domain innovative research supporting the Laboratory's national security mission. They prototype state-of-the-art technology solutions and engage in many steps of a program lifecycle with increasing independence and responsibility. As an Associate Staff member, you will contribute independently to multidisciplinary efforts, contribute to sponsor briefings, write test plans and reports, and apply complex and creative solutions to solving technical problems. You may own discrete project/program components or lead complex workstreams and small teams.

As a successful candidate, you will bring solid to strong technical depth, broaden your understanding across adjacent disciplines, and adapt approaches where precedent is limited. You will integrate technical inputs, contribute to program documentation and reporting, and collaborate with interdisciplinary project/program teams supporting projects that may range from rapid, high-risk efforts to longer-term mission programs. Your work will include multiple activities such as hardware and software development, systems analysis, data analysis, component fabrication, system integration, testing, and documentation.

The Air Traffic Control and Weather Systems Group is looking for a real-time C/C++ software engineer who can contribute to the development of a replacement for the ASR-9 Weather System Processor (WSP) that is currently deployed at 34 operational sites and provides safety-critical alerts to Air Traffic Controllers on low altitude wind-shear and microburst conditions that may be dangerous to aircraft approaching an airport. The ASR-9 and WSP are being replaced by new radars as part of the Brand-New Air Traffic Control System (BNATCS) and the WSP software, plus a new signal processing aspect, need to be made operational on this new system within a year. The scope of the project includes design, development, and testing of real-time signal processing software based on weather radar algorithms, developed initially in MATLAB, that ingest received in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) data samples from a radar receiver and generate weather base data (reflectivity, radial velocity, and spectrum width). The software engineer would participate in the C++ side of the software architecture and the design, implementation, and testing of the real-time prototype system. Experience in real-time, large-scale signal processing is preferred, particularly with knowledge of massive parallelization of FFTs on CPUs and GPUs.

• Own or lead design, development, data analysis, programming, modeling, simulation, integration, testing, troubleshooting, and technical evaluation activities within broader project or program efforts.
• Apply technical depth and judgment to less-defined and complex problems, identifying appropriate methods, adapting established approaches, and evaluating trade-offs.
• Contribute to or lead system-, subsystem-, or component-level work spanning multiple disciplines, mission needs, products, or technical focus areas.
• Develop, review, and integrate technical documentation, analyses, design materials, program reporting, presentations, papers, and other deliverables.
• Coordinate milestones, assumptions, dependencies, quality expectations, and risks and present findings, recommendations, and alternatives to appropriate audiences.
• Provide technical guidance, review, feedback, and mentorship while continuing to deepen mission-aligned expertise.

Candidates will be considered for the appropriate level based on their education, experience, demonstrated technical capabilities, leadership responsibilities, and the scope and complexity of their prior work.

Level 3 - Associate Staff

• Bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline or other relevant technical field and typically 2+ years of relevant experience; or Master's degree and typically 0+ years of relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Solid technical depth in a primary engineering, research, or other technical domain, with the ability to apply knowledge independently.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems and manage components of project work.
• Experience contributing to technical documentation, analyses, reports, presentations, or project deliverables.
• Ability to collaborate across project teams and communicate technical information clearly to appropriate audiences.
• Emerging ability to guide less experienced colleagues and contribute to team capability development.

Level 4 - Associate Staff

• Bachelor's degree in a STEM discipline or other relevant technical field and typically 4+ years of relevant experience; or Master's degree and typically 2+ years of relevant experience; a PhD may be considered; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Strong technical depth in a primary domain with emerging breadth across related engineering, research, technical disciplines, or mission areas.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems and lead components of projects or technical workstreams.
• Experience managing milestones, dependencies, risks, and deliverables for assigned project areas.
• Ability to communicate complex information to varied audiences and collaborate with project teams, sponsors, and internal partners.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor others, review work, and contribute to team technical capability.

Proficiency in C/C++, familiarity with MATLABDemonstrated experience in signal processing software developmentDemonstrated experience with C/C++ real-time libraries, particularly for signal processing, FFTs, and parallelizationExperience with GPU libraries for signal processing and parallelized FFT processing (e.g., CUDA, rocFFT for AMD, etc.)Experience with modern software DevSecOps pipelinesStrong communication and teaming skills

Proficiency working with Python-based AI and machine learning software packages: NumPy, Tensorflow, Keras, PyTorch, Scikit-learn