Description :

Company Description :

Stratum Defense Technology LLP is an Indian defence technology company building autonomous systems for the Indian armed forces. We are not a software consultancy, not a drone company pivoting to maritime, and not a proposal exercise. We are building hardware. Complex, safety-critical, sovereign hardware that India does not yet have.

Our flagship programme is Project MAKARA, India's first indigenous Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV). MAKARA is designed to give the Indian Navy persistent covert underwater surveillance, distributed acoustic sensor network deployment, anti-submarine warfare coordination, and precision undersea strike capability, all from a single autonomous platform that carries no foreign weapon dependency.

We are headquartered in New Delhi with programme operations at Visakhapatnam, co-located with NSTL and the Eastern Naval Command. We are at the founding team stage. The people joining now will be present at every significant milestone : ADITI 4 award, NSTL MoU signing.

Role Description :

You will write the firmware that makes Project MAKARA's acoustic network function. Specifically : the TDMA acoustic MAC protocol running on EvoLogics acoustic modem hardware, the sensor node firmware on STM32H755, AES-256-GCM encryption across all acoustic command frames, and the safety-critical DO-178C DAL-A Fire Control Unit state machine that is the highest-criticality software in the vehicle.

The DISC 14 proof-of-concept is the first major deliverable this role drives. The acoustic mesh needs to work in a pool with 16 nodes, the role transitions to SACE reactive layer qualification (DO-178C DAL-C) and FCU qualification (DO-178C DAL-A).

You will be the technical counterpart to NSTL's HRW team. The programme is grounded in three peer-reviewed papers from NSTL Vizag (2006, 2010, 2013) - you will have read them before your first day. This is not a desk-based simulation role. You will be preparing test articles, specifying instrumentation, and interpreting physical test data alongside DRDO scientists.

What you will do :

- Design, implement, and test TDMA acoustic MAC protocol firmware on EvoLogics S2C M HS modem embedded processor, including 16-slot frame structure and GPS-disciplined synchronisation

- Develop sensor node firmware for Project Makara (STM32H755, Zone A-E architecture per NSTL Varughese 2014 design)

- Implement AES-256-GCM encryption and HMAC-SHA256 two-factor authentication on all acoustic command frames

- Own SACE reactive layer embedded software to DO-178C DAL-C standard on INTEGRITY-178 RTOS with ARINC-653 partitioning

- Develop FCU launch-enable state machine to DO-178C DAL-A standard (most safety-critical software in MAKARA)

- Lead sub-system bench testing : FCU hardware isolation test, TDMA 4-node bench test, 16-node pool acoustic mesh validation

Qualifications :

Essential :

- BTech or MTech in Electronics, Electrical, or Computer Science

- Minimum 3 years C/C++ embedded development on ARM-based microcontrollers

- RTOS experience : FreeRTOS, Zephyr, or commercial RTOS

- Serial communications protocols : UART, SPI, I2C, CAN

- Experience integrating digital signal processing or acoustic/RF signal chain hardware

Beneficial :

- DO-178C DAL-A or DAL-C qualification experience

- INTEGRITY-178 or VxWorks RTOS background

- AUV, ROV, sonar, or acoustic modem integration experience

- Cryptographic library implementation : AES-GCM, HMAC-SHA256

- DRDO CAIR, NPOL, or naval acoustic systems background

What we offer :

- Work on a programme that does not exist anywhere else in India

- Direct access to NSTL Visakhapatnam test facilities and DRDO research community

- Founding team equity consideration for senior hires

- Competitive salary benchmarked to Chennai and Visakhapatnam defence-adjacent market

- Hybrid working : in-person at Chennai or Visakhapatnam for critical milestones, flexible otherwise

- Full involvement in iDEX ADITI 4 from award through prototype and Indian Navy acceptance