Senior Platforms Engineer

Work with cutting edge AI technology, making the world a safer and more secure place. DroneShield (ASX:DRO) offers an opportunity to solve some of world's most challenging technical problems in the rapidly growing counterdrone sector. Our customers are militaries, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure, law enforcement and many others.

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia, part of the ASX200 index, and having raised approximately $250m in 2024 alone, DroneShield is undergoing hypergrowth stage, fuelled by rapidly increasing use of drones for nefarious applications, from battlefield, to terrorism, to contraband delivery and commercial espionage.

This role is in the DroneShield Sydney headquarters in Sydney CBD. There are approximately 400 staff based in the 4,000sqm facility today, scheduled to grow to approximately 500 staff by end of 2026. Overseas on the ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries globally.

About the role

We're looking for a Senior Platforms Engineer to lead and evolve the operation, performance, and security of Linux systems across DroneShield's infrastructure and edge platforms. This is a hands-on, systems-level engineering role working across production servers, on-prem assets, and edge compute devices, with a focus on reliability, automation, and system observability.

You'll be part of the Linux Product Team with a main focus on DroneSentry-C2, while contributing to a broad scope of Linux Based systems and systems-of-systems

This role reports to the Platforms Team Lead.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations

• Own the configuration, tuning, and lifecycle of Linux systems across DroneShield's product and infrastructure landscape
• Build secure Linux images for company-wide use, from embedded systems to critical infrastructure
• Optimise performance and reliability across bootloaders, init systems, filesystems, and kernel modules
• Automate provisioning, patching, and system diagnostics using Bash, Python, and infrastructure tooling
• Lead secure-by-design hardening efforts: kernel lockdown, SELinux/AppArmor, TPM integration
• Design telemetry and observability into the operating system: system metrics, structured logs, boot diagnostics
• Maintain and evolve custom Linux images based on Ubuntu Classic and Ubuntu Core, for both x86 and ARM platforms
• Provide Level 3 support for OS and system-level issues across production and deployed assets
• Collaborate with security and embedded teams to ensure OS stability and traceability
• Document standards, interfaces, recovery workflows, and tuning decisions

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a similar technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience leading technical teams of engineers is desirable
• Extensive experience operating and debugging Linux systems (Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, Yocto)
• Deep understanding of Linux internals - kernel, init systems, udev, cgroups, bootloaders
• Experience building or managing custom Linux images for embedded or production systems
• Strong understanding of OS-level security - secure boot, TPMs, disk encryption, kernel lockdown
• Proficiency in Bash and at least one additional scripting or compiled language (Python, Go) is desirable
• Working knowledge of observability and performance analysis tooling - logs, metrics, diagnostics
• Understanding of networking fundamentals - routing, DNS, iptables/nftables, bonding/VLANs
• Familiarity with provisioning workflows - PXE, systemd services, Kickstart/preseed, cloud-init
• Understanding of identity management for Linux-based products - machine identity, credential lifecycle, secure key-handling
• Exposure to embedded Linux and ARM platforms and the constraints of rugged/edge deployments is desirable
• Experience with containerisation technologies for Linux products (Docker, Snap/Strict confinement, OCI-based packaging) is desirableFamiliarity with Red Hat's image-based deployment model (RHEL Image Mode / bootc) is desirable

Note for recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited candidates from external recruiters unless specifically instructed.