Software Architect – Defence and Mission-Critical Systems

Experience: 10–15 years

Employment Type: Full-time, permanent

Industry: Defence, Naval and Mission-Critical Systems

Drop Resume: [email protected]

Role Summary:

We are seeking a senior, hands-on Software Architect to lead the architecture, development, integration and delivery of mission-critical defence software products.

The candidate must have proven experience working with Battle Management Systems, Combat Management Systems, C4I platforms. The role requires direct experience integrating military sensors, effectors, communication systems and platform equipment into operational software.

The architect will own the software product from system requirements and architecture through development, integration, qualification, customer acceptance and operational deployment.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the end-to-end architecture for mission-critical defence and shipboard software products.

• Convert operational and system requirements into software requirements, interface specifications and verifiable architecture.

• Lead the integration of military sensors, RF, EOIR, Radars, communication equipment with weapon interfaces and other platform subsystems.

• Design distributed, real-time and fault-tolerant applications for command, control and situational-awareness systems.

• Establish software architecture principles, coding standards, interface standards and engineering processes.

• Ensure bidirectional traceability between system requirements, software requirements, design, source code and verification results.

• Prepare and review Software Development Plans, Software Quality Assurance Plans, Interface Control Documents, Verification and Validation Plans and software release documentation.

• Solid Understanding of STANAG, DEF STAN, IEEE and NATO interoperability requirements.

• Support software safety assessment, hazard analysis, design assurance and preparation of certification evidence.

• Architect the integration and deployment of machine-learning models within operational software.

• Lead architecture reviews, design reviews, code reviews and technical risk assessments.

• Take responsibility for product performance, reliability, cybersecurity, maintainability and long-term support.

Mandatory Defence and Standards Experience.

The candidate must have practical experience with:





• Battle Management Systems, Combat Management Systems & C4I Platforms

• Capability to interpret, develop and implement Interface Control Documents (ICDs) for integrating military sensors, equipment and external subsystems

- DEF STAN 00-55 – Safety of Programmable Elements in Defence Systems.
- DEF STAN 00-56 – Safety Management Requirements for Defence Systems.
- IEEE/ISO/IEC 12207 software lifecycle processes.
- Software Quality Assurance Plans, configuration management plans and certification documentation.
- Requirements traceability, design assurance, verification and validation.
- Relevant STANAGs and NATO interoperability standards.
- Preparing objective evidence for audits, qualification and customer acceptance.

Experience with DEF STAN 00-40, DEF STAN 00-42 and DEF STAN 00-600 is desirable.

Software Architecture and Engineering Skills

- Robust architecture experience with distributed, event-driven and real-time software systems.
- Strong programming experience in C++ and/or Java or C#, with working knowledge of Python.
- Linux-based application development, system services, process management and performance optimization.
- Multithreading, concurrency, inter-process communication and deterministic data processing.
- Network programming using TCP/IP, UDP, multicast, serial communication and message-oriented middleware.
- Strong understanding of design patterns, modular architecture, service-oriented architecture and microservices where operationally appropriate.
- High availability, redundancy, failover, health monitoring and graceful degradation.
- Secure coding, authentication, authorization, encryption, audit logging and cybersecurity hardening.
- Offline and disconnected operations in bandwidth-constrained defence environments.

Machine-Learning Skills

• Experience integrating computer vision, detection, classification, tracking or decision-support models into production products.





• Model conversion and optimized inference using ONNX and hardware-specific inference engines.

• Deployment on GPU and edge-computing platforms.

• Understanding of model validation, dataset versioning, performance benchmarking and inference monitoring.

• Ability to define controlled fallback behaviour when an ML model produces uncertain or invalid results.

• Experience maintaining traceability between model versions, datasets, software releases and operational performance.

Development and Engineering Tools The candidate should have hands-on experience with:

• Containers: Docker and container orchestration where appropriate.

• Dynamic analysis: Valgrind, sanitizers, profiling and memory-analysis tools.

• Interface testing: Wireshark, protocol simulators, equipment emulators and hardware-in-the-loop test environments.

• Observability: Structured logging, and system-health monitoring.

• Documentation: Controlled requirements, architecture, interface, test and release documentation with complete traceability.

• ML lifecycle: MLflow, DVC or equivalent model and dataset version-control tools.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electronics, Electrical Engineering or a related discipline.

• Minimum 10 years of direct software product engineering and delivery experience.

• Demonstrated ownership of at least one complete mission-critical or defence software product lifecycle.

• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams across software, electronics, systems engineering, testing and field integration.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills for working with customers, certification authorities, military users and equipment OEMs.

Mandatory Eligibility Conditions

• Candidates with less than 10 years of relevant software product delivery experience will not be considered.

• Consultants, independent advisors and candidates with predominantly consulting or advisory experience will not be considered.

• The candidate must demonstrate direct, hands-on responsibility for architecture, engineering, integration, qualification and operational delivery of software products.

• General enterprise IT architecture experience without defence, naval, industrial control or comparable mission-critical product experience will not meet the requirements of this position.

📌 Software Architect – Defence and Mission-Critical Systems (Hyderabad)
🏢 Matrix Smart Technologies
📍 Hyderabad