About the role
Embedded Systems Engineer Preferred Location: Toronto Reports to: COO Type: Full-Time About Dominion Dynamics See everything. Defend what matters. Dominion Dynamics is building tomorrow’s technology today: sovereign, next-generation defence systems for the harshest environments on Earth. We’re delivering a software-defined command and control capability that lets Canada and its allies see, respond, and defend across every domain, starting in the Arctic, where extreme cold demands technology no one else can deliver. From prototype to deployment in months, we move fast, co-develop with operators, innovate at the edge, and test in our North. Our founding team includes veterans from Anduril, Google, Amazon, and the Canadian Armed Forces. We’re building hard tech in hard places, and we're looking for system-level thinkers who thrive at the intersection of autonomy, aerospace, and national security. Why This Role Matters Real missions require embedded systems that survive constrained links, harsh environments, and rapid iteration cycles; delivering that reliability saves time, risk, and cost in deployment. This role supports critical firmware, communications, and diagnostics work so Dominion Dynamics systems remain operational and supportable in the field.
The Role: Embedded Systems Engineer As an Embedded Systems Engineer, you’ll join our engineering cohort focused on integrating cutting-edge hardware platforms with secure, resilient software systems in extreme field environments. Your work will enable real-time interoperability between uncrewed systems, edge nodes, sensors, and command interfaces. You’ll play a critical role in ensuring that distributed software and hardware elements function and communicate reliably in the Arctic, and meet both defence and civilian dual-use demands. What You’ll Do Design and build integration layers across hardware, sensors, and communication systems. Implement and manage messaging and control protocols using DDS and JAUS standards. Develop and maintain plug-ins and interface modules for ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit). Integrate robotic and sensing platforms using ROS 2 and sensor fusion middleware. Collaborate with software and hardware teams to ensure seamless operation between the software stack and field-deployed platforms. Design and maintain telemetry, control, and visualization interfaces for forward-deployed operators. Develop test harnesses, simulators, and diagnostic tools for real-world and lab environments. Participate in field deployments and systems validation in the Arctic or remote test sites. What You’ll Bring 2-5 years developing and integrating firmware/systems; 5+ years in robotics/defence/industrial automation is a plus. Strong firmware skills in C/C++ with practical scripting in Python; familiarity with JavaScript is helpful for tooling/visualization. Embedded Linux and RTOS (e.g., FreeRTOS) fundamentals; cross-compilation, startup/init, and service management. Build and toolchain proficiency: CMake, Make, reproducible builds, version control (Git/GitHub). Interfaces and protocols: CAN, SPI, I²C, TCP/IP; serial comms and message framing. Debugging across HW/FW: JTAG, GDB, vendor IDEs; board bring-up, fault tracing, and performance profiling. Microcontrollers: STM32 and TI families; drivers, HALs, and peripheral integration. Robotics integration platforms: ROS 2, DDS, JAUS, TAK/ATAK (Android/Windows or similar); experience deploying any of these in real scenarios is strongly preferred. Perception/sensor tooling: exposure to OpenCV, sensor-fusion stacks, and telemetry/visualization flows. Cloud/dev tooling familiarity: GCP (or similar), CI basics, artifact packaging. Traits: pragmatic and test-driven, comfortable in high-ambiguity startup environments, collaborative and low-ego, mission-aligned with building sovereign capability. Eligibility for Canadian security clearance preferred; Canadian citizenship an asset. No defence background required. We've hired people who didn't tick every box. If this is the work you want to do, please apply anyway.