Senior GCS Software Engineer – C++ / Qt
Is your dream job building the interface a soldier trusts with their life, the screen that lets them focus on the mission, not on flying the drone? Then keep reading...
Evolve Dynamics builds best-in-class UAV systems, payloads and software; used by UK police, fire and rescue, the Ministry of Defence, NATO partners, and heavily by Ukraine. We’ve been going since 2016, we’re one of the leading UAS companies in the world, and the ground control software is where all of that capability meets the human being in the field.
This role owns that human interface. You’ll take our Ground Control Software and make it something operators love: clear, calm and intuitive under pressure. Your north star is reducing cognitive load, so an operator can focus on the mission rather than on piloting. You’ll bring together live video, mapping, sensor data and aircraft telemetry into interfaces that just make sense and shape where our ground software goes next. Part of your brief will be helping us emulate the hardware so the whole team can develop and test the GCS remotely and effectively.
We’re also genuinely curious about how AI changes the way we build. We want to experiment with AI-augmented workflows and find a consistent, sustainable way of working that blends real software-engineering excellence with the speed AI can offer, no vibe, no hype, but a practical edge. If that excites you, you’ll be pushing at an open door.
What you’ll be like:
- Work small, deploy often. You break big problems into meaningful small chunks, deliver, and get feedback quickly rather than disappearing into large batches of work for weeks.
- Your code should bleed quality. You write tests first, automate your pipeline, and treat “done” as “in the user’s hands, safely.” You drive readable, testable, continuously-delivered code and you help everyone around you do the same.
- Be safe, we work in the Defence & Aviation industries, safe code and a safe product is paramount.
- Work together, not apart. You genuinely prefer pairing and mobbing to heads-down solo work. You see sharing knowledge as part of the job, not an interruption to it, and you help dissolve silos rather than build them.
- Finish before you start. You naturally limit work-in-progress, focus on one thing at a time, and are wary of the hidden cost of context-switching.
- Be inquisitive. We want you to question the code, the pull requests and the processes, and you share your thoughts on better ways of doing things, lifting the productivity and quality as we go.
- Be bold. Your voice and your ideas will help shape the team’s success.
- You feel for the operator. You genuinely care about the person on the other end of the screen, and you design to lighten their load when it matters most.
- You own “intuitive.” You’re happy to own the whole problem of intuitive control end to end, working from real user stories rather than being handed a spec.
- Be a pragmatic leader, and lead by example, show the team where improvements can be made, but balance it against productivity and customer deadlines.
What you’ll bring (demonstrable examples matter more than years):
- C++ & Qt strong, demonstrable experience building applications in modern C++ with Qt (Qt Quick / QML and/or Widgets).
- UI / UX engineering a real track record of designing intuitive interfaces from user stories and operator needs, with cognitive load front of mind.
- Geographic mapping experience with mapping / GIS components and building map-centric operational interfaces.
- Video receive & display a working grasp of video receive and display technologies and the pipelines behind them.
- Lovely to have QGroundControl and MAVLink experience, ATAK / TAK ecosystem familiarity, and experience deploying Qt apps to Android devices.
The practical stuff:
This is a full-time, senior role, and it’s properly remote-friendly — in fact, helping us emulate the hardware and enable smooth remote working is part of the job. We work from home and come into our Farnham office when there’s real value in doing so.
You’ll also get:
- Competitive Salary
- 25 days holiday
- Eligibility for the company bonus scheme
- Salary sacrifice car scheme
- Private health insurance
It’s an exciting time in a growing team, and the ground station is one of the most visible, high-impact surfaces of our whole product. Come and make your mark. Apply now.
Work Location: In person
