---
title: 'Fleet Software Engineer (Multiple Levels) at Pyka'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/fleet-software-engineer-multiple-levels-pyka-alameda-7wx9mraw5qpn'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Fleet Software Engineer (Multiple Levels) at Pyka

- **Company:** Pyka
- **Location:** Alameda, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-25
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/pyka/583a6d1b-8369-43a0-8377-90efa1660727

## Job description

## About Pyka

Pyka’s goal is to provide society with a new form of safe, clean, and cost-effective transportation enabled by autonomous electric aviation. To get there, we’re taking a different approach than most. We're applying our technologies to every industry where autonomous electric aircraft can be useful, starting with the highest value and most dangerous jobs. In doing so, we're building game-changing products manufactured at scale, while perfecting the safety, reliability, and capabilities of our autonomy engine and electric propulsion systems. We design, develop and manufacture an ecosystem of technologies including proprietary flight control software, avionics, high power density motors, motor controllers, batteries, and custom carbon-fiber composite airframes. Today, we supply autonomous electric aircraft for cargo transport and crop protection to real-world customers across four separate continents and have secured industry-first regulatory approvals from the FAA. Our cargo aircraft enables remote connectivity, enhances express delivery networks, and ensures fast and reliable shipping of critical supplies to areas in need. Our crop protection aircraft offers agricultural services providers and farmers an autonomous tool to make aerial application safer, more precise, and less harmful to surrounding environments. Both vehicles are highly economical to operate, easy to deploy, and significantly reduce CO2 emissions in their respective industries. What you work on at Pyka makes people’s lives better now and brings the future of electric aviation one step closer each day.

## Role Overview

Pyka is looking for a software engineer to own the path our software takes from the development branch to the fleet. Issues from the field arrive without regard to subsystem boundaries, so you will work across the full aircraft software stack: autonomy, controls, avionics interfaces, and ground systems. You will decide what ships to the fleet and when, own several aircraft software systems directly, and build the testing and release infrastructure the engineering team relies on. Much of the role is responding to what comes in: reproducing issues from flight logs, isolating them, and either fixing them or handing the subsystem owner a diagnosed problem with a test case attached. The rest is work you scope yourself out of that same pipeline: adding the regression test that would have caught an issue, instrumenting a subsystem so the next occurrence produces usable data, or automating a release step that a person currently does by hand. Some of the current and future projects you will likely contribute to include: Expanding our automated test infrastructure that gates every release, including hardware-in-the-loop tests, simulation-based regression suites, and log replay against real flight data Developing tooling to aid in triaging, bug reproduction, and root cause analysis Improving our six-week release cadence, including release tooling, versioning, artifact distribution, release notes generation, and staged rollout across a growing fleet Maintaining and improving core aircraft software systems such as logging and telemetry, configuration management, health monitoring, and over-the-air software distribution Adding observability to parts of the aircraft that are currently difficult to debug after the fact

## Responsibilities

- Own the release process end-to-end: define what ships, what blocks, and what the bar for "ready to fly" is, and run the cadence on a predictable schedule
- Triage and root-cause bugs reported from flight operations, field testing, and customer deployments across the full aircraft stack
- Assess severity based on safety and customer impact, and make the call on what gets a hotfix, what goes into the next release, and what is documented and deferred
- Fix issues directly when they fall in your area, and hand subsystem owners a diagnosed problem with a test case attached when they do not
- Own and maintain several aircraft software subsystems, including their long-term design direction
- Design and build testing infrastructure and release management tooling that shortens the time between a change landing and knowing whether it is safe to fly
- Run and improve our six-week release cadence
- Identify recurring sources of engineering interrupts and address them at the source
- Write production-quality code in C++17 and Python, including testing, validation, and support during flight and field testing
- Work closely with flight operations to understand what happens in the field and feed that back into engineering

## Preferred Qualifications

- Professional experience with C++ (ideally C++11 or newer): 2+ years for Engineer II, 5+ years for Senior
- Professional experience with Python
- A track record of debugging difficult problems in systems you did not write, often with incomplete data
- Experience with testing infrastructure, CI/CD, release engineering, or build and distribution systems for software that ships to physical devices
- Interest in or experience with real-world robotic systems, especially where software interacts with hardware
- Comfort working across the stack from low-level systems to user-facing tools
- Working knowledge of trigonometry and linear algebra
- Willingness to travel occasionally to our California test sites

## Compensation & Benefits

- $144,000–$220,000 salary per year + equity. Compensation will vary depending on location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Salary ranges are subject to change.
- Employer-sponsored health, dental and vision insurance
- FSA with employer matching
- 401(k)
- Paid holidays, generous PTO, and additional unpaid time off
- Voluntary short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance
- Pre-tax commuter benefits
- Free catered lunch and plenty of snacks

Export Control Requirements This position requires access to technology, software and other information that is subject to governmental access control restrictions, due to export controls.  Employment in this position is conditioned on the continued availability of government authorization to authorize release of such items, to the extent required, including without limitation an export license, or other documentation required to establish authorization to receive access to such items. Company may delay commencement of employment, rescind an offer of employment, terminate employment, and/or may modify job responsibilities, compensation, benefits, and/or access to Company facilities and information systems, as Company deems appropriate, in order to ensure compliance with applicable government access control restrictions.

-- We do not work with external recruiters; if you are an external recruiter, please do not reach out.

## About Pyka

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Pyka designs, develops, and manufactures autonomous electric aircraft for cargo transport and crop protection.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B)
- **Headquarters**: Alameda, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Michael Norcia (Co-Founder, CEO), Chuma Ogunwole (Co-Founder, COO), Nathan White (Co-Founder, Head of Flight Operations)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Autonomous electric aviation, aerospace, agriculture, defense & logistics
- Target customers: B2B, government (AFWERX, Department of Defense), agricultural service providers, commercial cargo operators
- Mission or purpose statement: To provide society with a new form of safe, clean, and cost-effective transportation enabled by autonomous electric aviation, starting with the highest value and most dangerous jobs.

## Products & Services
- **Pelican Spray**: A fully autonomous electric crop duster for aerial application, designed to make crop protection safer, more precise, and less harmful to surrounding environments. Certified for commercial operation in New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the US (FAA 44807 Authorization).
- **Pelican Cargo**: The world's largest zero-emission autonomous cargo UAS, designed for remote connectivity, express delivery, and shipping critical supplies. Delivered to AFWERX (US Air Force innovation arm) for contested logistics use cases.
- **Pelican 2**: Next-generation autonomous aircraft unveiled in February 2025, featuring significant design improvements and securing FAA authorization for commercial operation in the US.
- **Proprietary technology ecosystem**: Flight control software, avionics, high power density motors, motor controllers, batteries, and custom carbon-fiber composite airframes.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $95.12M (Series B of $40M raised in 2024/2025; Series A of $37M; Seed+ $8M; initial Y Combinator round $3M)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (S17 batch), EmbraerX (partnership for Brazil operations), AFWERX (US Department of Air Force), GO-Biz (California tax credit award), SLC Agrícola (major ag customer)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Secured world's first approval for autonomous night spray operations in Costa Rica
  - Receiving orders across four continents (Americas, Europe, etc.)
  - Delivered Pelican Cargo to AFWERX for exploration of contested logistics use cases
  - Awarded $7M California Tax Credit to expand manufacturing
  - Surpassed 75 employees (from 50+ milestone)
  - Signed first major US customer for Pelican Spray

## Competitive Advantages
- First-mover regulatory advantage: World’s first autonomous electric aircraft certified for commercial work (2019), first FAA 44807 authorization for commercial autonomous electric crop spraying in the US, and first approval for night autonomous spray operations.
- Dual-use technology platform serving both commercial (agriculture, logistics) and defense (AFWERX) markets.
- Vertically integrated technology stack (proprietary flight control, avionics, motors, batteries, and airframes) creating deep moats against competitors.
- Real-world operational deployment across multiple countries and continents, not just prototypes or test flights.
- Strong safety record with regulatory approvals from FAA, New Zealand CAA, and Costa Rican authorities.

## Strategic Focus
- Scaling production of the Pelican 2 and Pelican Cargo aircraft lines
- Expanding into defense and dual-use applications (contested logistics for US Air Force)
- Growing commercial operations in agriculture with major customers like SLC Agrícola in Brazil
- Expanding global regulatory approvals to open new markets
- Building out manufacturing capacity with GO-Biz support in California
- Achieving economies of scale while maintaining vertical integration

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Pyka started in the founder's parents' garage with a "shoes optional" early culture, and retains a startup ethos focused on building game-changing products. Employees report working on things that make people's lives better now.
- **Engineering focus**: You'll work on cutting-edge autonomy, electric propulsion, and aerospace hardware/software. The tech stack spans flight control software, avionics, high power density motors, motor controllers, batteries, and carbon-fiber composites.
- **Impact**: "What you work on at Pyka makes people’s lives better now and brings the future of electric aviation one step closer each day."
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Some roles are remote (e.g., Flight Support Engineer - Night Shift, Brazil remote), while engineering and manufacturing roles likely require presence at the Alameda/Oakland facilities.
- **Location**: Based in Alameda, CA (with manufacturing in Oakland), offering a Bay Area aerospace startup experience.
- **Stage**: Series B with ~75 employees—ideal for someone who wants to join a growth-stage company with proven product-market fit and clear regulatory path to scale.
- **Current open roles** (via Lever): Senior Account Executive (Brazil), Deployed Flight Test Engineer, Flight Demo & Training Specialist (Multiple Levels), Flight Support Engineer (Night Shift, Brazil remote).

## Sources
1. [flypyka.com](https://www.flypyka.com/about-us)
2. [flypyka.com/careers](https://flypyka.com/careers)
3. [jobs.lever.co/pyka](https://jobs.lever.co/pyka/)
4. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/pyka)
5. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pyka)

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