SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Swarmer is a Ukrainian defense tech company that develops autonomous drone software enabling large coordinated teams to operate without pilots. The company became the first Ukrainian defense startup to go public on NASDAQ in March 2026 following a $15M Series A, the largest investment in Ukrainian defense tech since the war began.
As VP of Engineering, you will own all engineering functions and lead a fast-growing technical organization. This is a hands-on, execution-focused role requiring both strategic vision and direct involvement in critical decisions.
Key responsibilities include: setting technical strategy and making architecture decisions that keep the rapidly expanding product coherent as it scales; directing engineering effort toward scalable, roadmap-aligned solutions rather than one-off client work; ruthlessly prioritizing initiatives based on business value; building and owning core engineering processes including pipelines, release management, testing, and incident response; managing technical debt; coordinating across cloud, onboard software, autonomy, QA, hardware integration, product, and field operations; and scaling the engineering organization including engineering managers, team leads, and senior contributors. You'll report to the CPO with all engineering leads reporting to you.
Ideal candidates have strong experience building complex, mission-critical, life-critical, or high-load enterprise/B2B systems and managing teams of 50+ people. Embedded and hardware-close software experience is critical given the physical-world constraints of drone systems. Required expertise includes Linux-based edge systems, networking, containers, ARM platforms (NVIDIA Jetson, Raspberry Pi), distributed systems with unreliable connectivity, fault tolerance, recovery, observability, fleet management, and remote updates. Strong cloud and backend architecture knowledge (APIs, databases, messaging, infrastructure, security, production operations) is essential. Familiarity with robotics or embedded system architecture, including MAVLink, ArduPilot, PX4, or ROS 2, is a strong plus. You must have proven experience building reliable, safety-sensitive systems with strong testing, release, and incident-management practices, and a business-minded approach to understanding strategic priorities. Excellent communication skills and professional English are required.
Nice-to-have qualifications include miltech experience (especially Ukrainian), direct drone/robotics/autonomous systems experience, proficiency in Python, C/C++, Podman, Docker, simulation/SIL/HIL testing experience, and knowledge of secure boot, device hardening, signed software, and operation in degraded communication environments.
The role offers the opportunity to shape core autonomy and perception systems at the heart of Ukraine's defense tech ecosystem and its international expansion, with direct impact in a high-stakes industry where security decisions carry real-world consequences. Benefits include competitive salary, insurance, paid sick leave, 20 paid days off annually, and defense sector benefits.
