We’re hiring an embedded software engineer to help build the low level architecture for our VAKR sensor system.

Stendr is a Norwegian defence technology company building AI-native hardware and software for the modern battlefield. We focus on sovereign European capability, developing systems designed for autonomy, resilience, and real-world deployment.

Based in Oslo, we are an early-stage company with ambitious growth plans and close collaboration with operators, industry, and policy stakeholders. Our mission is to help strengthen Europe's technological and strategic independence in defence.

Stendr builds VAKR, a sensor network that detects small drones — including ones that are RF-silent. A node consists of a software-defined radio with multiple coherent receive channels and an onboard FPGA, streaming samples over PCI Express to a host computer. The processing is split: pulse compression runs on the FPGA, the rest of the detection chain runs in Rust on the host. Your job is to implement that pipeline: make it run live, keep it fast, and keep it close to the hardware.

What you'll do

• Implement the DSP pipeline: every stage from raw samples to detections. The signal processing is designed by our research side; you make it correct, fast, and verified against the reference.

• Write the real-time part: threads, buffers, priorities, latency. The radio streams samples over PCI Express. No sample may be lost without us knowing it.

• Keep it fast: profiling, SIMD, fixed point. Speed is checked in CI the same way tests are.

• Work on the hardware side: the radio's firmware, drivers, PCI Express, timing.

• Own quality: tests, benchmarks, golden files, releases.

What success looks like

30 days

The pipeline runs on your machine, you have flashed a board, and your first benchmark is in CI.

90 days

The live path runs in real time with margin, and the numbers proving it are in CI.

6 months

The pipeline runs live through a full field test, and sample accounting holds.

You're a fit if you

• Have extensive experience in Rust or C/C++.

• Have worked in constrained environments: limited CPU, memory, or power. Our compute budget is small and fixed.

• Know what the machine does with your code: memory, cache, threads.

• Have written and debugged numerical code: FFTs, filters, correlation, fixed point.

• Have built something where timing mattered and lost data was a bug — audio, robotics, drivers, games, trading, or similar.

• Use AI tools as a catalyst.

• Have worked close to hardware: datasheets, C libraries, debugging problems that turn out to be a cable.

• Have experience with the Linux kernel, Linux drivers, and Yocto.

Even better if you

• Have FPGA experience (VHDL/Verilog).

• Have done GPU computing (CUDA, Metal, wgpu, or similar).

• Have worked with software-defined radio.

• Speak Norwegian.

Radar knowledge is not required. We teach the domain.

Logistics

Oslo-based, on-site. Competitive compensation and equity. Norwegian or EU/EEA citizenship required.