Lead Software Engineer
Manna
Lead Software Engineer
Manna
Drone delivery service for urban Europe
Manna · Dublin, Ireland (Hybrid) · Full-time · Posted 2026-09-17
Workplace: hybrid
Department: Software
About Manna
At Manna, we’re changing how the world receives things — by taking delivery to the skies.
Our mission is simple but ambitious: to make high-speed suburban delivery affordable, green, and safe. We design and build our own aviation-grade drones that deliver food, coffee, groceries, and more — directly from local stores and vendors to people’s doors in just a few minutes.
We’re a team that Drive with Impact, are Safety Focused, and knows that the best ideas come from Team Players who show up as their Authentic Selves. We move fast, we are passionate about what we do, and we’re always pushing a growth mindset to be better — in everything we do.
If you want to build world-changing technology with real-world impact (and have a bit of fun while doing it), you’ll love it here.
Welcome to Manna — where we deliver the future.
Role Purpose
As the Lead Software Engineer on the Aircraft team, you will drive the technical strategy for onboard and embedded aircraft systems. You’ll set long-term architecture direction, lead high-stakes multi-project delivery, and mentor senior engineers across the wider software organisation.
This role is ideal for someone who is equally comfortable going deep on embedded/robotics software and stepping back to shape systems, standards, and teams.
Define the architecture for aircraft onboard software and supporting firmware.
Set standards for reliability, performance, and scalability across aircraft systems.
Contribute to architectural decisions that span multiple teams (e.g., Aircraft ↔ Airspace ↔ QA).
Lead design reviews for critical components, ensuring high-confidence deployment in safety-critical environments.
Ensure roadmap execution while balancing near-term operational needs with long-term system health.
Own risk management, rollout strategy, incident learnings, and continuous improvement for aircraft software.
Partner closely with Hardware, Autonomy, Operations, and Aviation stakeholders.
Mentor senior engineers and grow technical leadership depth on the team.
Provide day-to-day technical leadership and coaching to software engineers.
Support hiring and onboarding to grow team capacity.
8–12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant time spent on embedded, robotics, or safety-critical systems.
Deep expertise in C++ and Embedded C/C++; strong systems-level Python experience beneficial.
Track record defining architecture across complex, hardware-adjacent software environments.
Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple complex projects, including setting architecture direction and owning delivery outcomes. Experience working in safety-critical domains such as aviation, aerospace, robotics, automotive, or industrial systems.
Strong debugging instincts across software ↔ hardware boundaries.
History of mentoring senior engineers; people-management, growing technical capability across teams.
Experience leading design reviews, risk assessments, and incident learnings in high-reliability environments.
Experience with autonomy, avionics, drones, robotics, or real-time control systems.
Familiarity with flight stacks (ArduPilot/PX4), ROS/ROS2, or equivalent embedded platforms.
Experience with power systems, battery management, charging firmware, or similar hardware-integrated domains.
Background in safety cases or reliability engineering for operational systems.
*This role is based in Dublin, Ireland.
Powered by Workable
Manna provides drone delivery services for businesses in Europe, focusing on fast, direct deliveries in urban areas. Drones take off from a delivery hub, fly up to 200 feet to minimize noise and navigate urban obstacles, and reach customers’ yards at speeds up to 60 mph to deliver packages, including delicate items like fresh eggs. Each drone is equipped with multiple redundant safety systems and an automatic parachute to handle emergencies. The service runs through a hub-and-spoke model where orders are picked, launched, and flown to the customer’s location for quick, reliable delivery. Compared with competitors, Manna distinguishes itself with a long track record (over 150,000 flights) and strong regulatory approvals in Europe that support safer, scalable operations. The company aims to grow its customer base by offering dependable, fast drone deliveries to businesses, expanding its urban coverage and fleet capabilities as the drone-delivery market expands.
Explore more opportunities at Manna