Principal Software Engineer

Company Overview

Red 6 is an innovative Augmented Reality (AR) technology startup leading the way in synthetic air combat training. Our primary technology, supporting our ATARS product, enables pilots to simulate the cognitive challenges of flying while accessing realistic, scalable training in dynamic outdoor environments.

The Software Engineering team at Red 6 develops next-generation AR pilot training systems. We engineer high performing and highly advanced augmented and virtual reality platforms and infrastructure, which support our military partners’ operations. This enables us to collaborate and train with the world’s most advanced military systems and develop our soldiers’ capabilities as the world’s most important line of defense.

The Role

As a Principal Software Engineer at Red 6, you will take a critical role in developing next generation AR pilot training and operation. You will be responsible for identifying and implementing novel solutions to cutting edge augmented reality challenges. To achieve that mission, you will be involved in developing the company’s simulation back-end and implementing features that can involve numerous aspects of the graphics and visual domain, as well as hardware-software integration, data processing and optimization. You will work on integrating state-of-the-art simulation technology with live aircraft.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and optimization of high-performance software for AR/VR systems using C++ and Unreal Engine.

• Architect and implement core features for synthetic reality applications, including rendering systems, simulation frameworks, and data pipelines.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with hardware, simulation, and design teams to deliver integrated AR solutions for military training environments.

• Mentor and guide software engineers by setting technical direction, conducting code reviews, and promoting engineering best practices.

• Evaluate and integrate new technologies to enhance system performance, visual fidelity, and real-time responsiveness.

• Own end-to-end delivery of complex software components, from prototype to deployment on live aircraft and training systems.

• Ensure software is scalable, secure, and aligned with Red 6’s quality and mission-critical requirements.

• Drive technical problem-solving across the full software stack, including threading, memory management, and real-time data processing.

• Participate in technical planning, requirement gathering, and documentation to support both internal teams and external stakeholders.

• Contribute to the creation of testing strategies, tooling, and CI/CD infrastructure to support rapid and reliable development cycles.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional C++ development

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field. (Master’s preferred)

• Familiar with build processes, compiler toolchains and content pipelines

• Comfortable writing multithreaded, time-sensitive, and optimized code

• Strong experience developing in Linux operating systems

• Understanding of memory management, real-time simulation environments, hardware-software integration, and runtime optimization

• Willingness to travel for customer integrations and demonstrations as required (up to 10%)

• Qualified candidate must have the ability to obtain a security clearance. This requires U.S. Citizenship

Preferred / Additional Skills

• Strong understanding of 3D math, techniques for numerical computing, modeling, simulation

• Experience working on a live service or online multiplayer game

• Experience with Jira, Perforce, and Confluence or similar bug/task tracking and version control software

• Background with military or law enforcement and the ability to understand the nuances of customer use cases in those industries

• 2+ years of professional experience with high performance video game or AR/VR applications, preferably in the Unreal game engine environment

• 2+ years’ experience shipping user-facing features on games or other 3D interactive products

• Ability to create data driven visuals as well as control in game objects with exterior data

• Implement and improve various low-level systems that interface with platform APIs, i.e memory a