Principal Software Engineer

Contract Software Engineer (Ada) – Real-Time Embedded

Location: Luton (Hybrid – ~4 days on-site)
Contract Length: 12 months
IR35: Inside IR35
Rate: £57.72 p/h PAYE (£66.11p/h inc. holiday rate) OR £78.70 p/h Umbrella

We seek an engineer with recent high-integrity or safety-critical industry experience (defence, aerospace, or similar), or eligible for UK security clearance.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for an experienced real-time embedded Ada engineer to work on mission-critical defensive systems within a highly technical electronic warfare environment. This is a hands-on role developing, integrating, and testing high-integrity software that directly supports operational capability.

You’ll be trusted with complex problems, work closely with systems, hardware, and firmware teams, and play a key role across the full software lifecycle.

What You’ll Do

• Design, develop, debug, and test real-time embedded software in Ada
• Own complex work packages from requirements through integration and delivery
• Produce high-integrity, mission-critical software to defined engineering and quality standards
• Work collaboratively across disciplines while retaining autonomy and technical ownership
• Support current platforms and contribute to future capability development

What You Bring

• Expert-level Ada (including OO design principles)
• Strong experience debugging embedded real-time systems using a COTS RTOS
• Solid understanding of UML and structured design
• Deep knowledge of Verification & Validation techniques and when to apply them
• Experience with requirements engineering, integration, and target testing
• Comfortable working within a mature, governed development framework