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 counter-drone sector.   

Our customers operate in some of the most challenging and high-stakes environments in the world, including military organisations, government agencies, airports, critical infrastructure operators, and law enforcement. Protecting airspace in these settings requires technology that performs under pressure and teams that understand what’s at stake. At DroneShield, employees work at the leading edge of counter-drone innovation, helping to address real-world security challenges as drone threats continue to evolve globally. 

With one of the largest listed defence company market capitalisations in Australia, now part of the ASX200 index, DroneShield is experiencing a period of hypergrowth. Revenue has surged from A$57 million in 2024 to over A$217 million in 2025, representing record profitability and cashflow. The total addressable global market for counter-drone is assessed at approximately $100 billion, and is currently at the nascent stage with much of the growth still to come, with DroneShield well positioned as a global market leader, and the only public listed pure-play business in this sector.   

The company has grown from 11 employees in 2017 to over 450 staff globally today, and is on track to reach around 550 by the end of 2026. This expansion includes investment of over A$50 million annually in R&D, a global pipeline exceeding A$2.5 billion, and continuous scaling of production capacity to meet accelerating demand.  

The role is based at DroneShield’s central Sydney headquarters. Overseas on-the-ground presence includes Virginia (USA), Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico and Dubai, as well as distributors in over 70 countries worldwide. 

About the role

We are looking for a Linux Product Team Lead to lead and grow the C2 Linux Product Team, owning the Linux platform that underpins the DroneSentry-C2 ecosystem. This is a hands-on technical leadership role focused on Linux platform engineering, reliability, security, automation and observability across development, production and deployed customer environments.

Initially focused on the Linux platforms supporting the DroneSentry-C2 ecosystem, the role will progressively expand to establish platform standards, Linux capabilities and engineering practices across DroneShield's broader portfolio of internal and customer-facing products. You will lead the Linux Product Team and work closely with Software, AI, Security, Infrastructure and Product teams to deliver secure, scalable and highly reliable Linux platforms and services.

Key areas of ownership include:

• DroneSentry-C2 and ruggedised field hardware
• Development and maintenance of secure Linux SOEs
• Testing Linux compatibility and performance across server and edge platforms
• Infrastructure supporting Linux device manufacturing
• Software supply chain security
• Secure remote access platforms
• Platform observability, monitoring and reliability
• Providing L3 support for OS and system-level issues across production and deployed assets

If you're interested in solving hard problems, building platforms that need to withstand the attention of nation-state adversaries, and working alongside red and blue teams to continuously test, break and improve our systems, this is the role for you. You'll help build the platforms that power real-world defence capabilities, where security, reliability and operational excellence aren't nice-to-haves, they're mission-critical.

This role reports to the Director, AI Systems & Platforms.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations 

• Lead and mentor the Linux Product Team
• Define technical direction, standards and roadmap for the Linux platform
• Own the configuration, tuning and lifecycle of Linux systems across DroneShield products
• Build and maintain secure Linux images for server, edge and embedded platforms
• Optimise performance, reliability and security across Linux platforms
• Automate provisioning, patching, configuration management and diagnostics
• Lead OS hardening initiatives including secure boot, TPM integration and platform security controls
• Design and implement observability, monitoring and telemetry standards
• Establish reliability engineering practices including service health metrics, alerting and incident management
• Maintain Ubuntu Classic and Ubuntu Core platforms across x86 and ARM environments
• Provide Level 3 support for OS and system-level issues
• Collaborate with Software, AI, Security and Product teams to ensure platform stability, scalability and traceability
• Document architecture, standards, operational procedures and recovery processes

Qualifications, Experience and Skills 

• Extensive experience operating and debugging Linux systems (Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL or Yocto-based)
• Strong understanding of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, including reliability, scalability, observability, operational excellence and supply chain security
• Experience leading engineers, technical projects and/or platform teams
• Deep understanding of Linux internals including kernel, init systems, udev, cgroups and bootloaders
• Proficiency in Bash scripting and at least one additional language (e.g. Python, Go) 
• Experience with secure boot, TPMs, disk encryption and OS-level security controls
• Experience building or managing custom Linux images for embedded or production use 
• Experience defining and operating SLOs, SLIs, alerting frameworks and incident management processes
• Experience with monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting and observability platforms
• Experience troubleshooting complex infrastructure, platform and production issues
• Familiarity with PXE, systemd services, Kickstart/preseed or cloud-init workflows
• Strong networking fundamentals including routing, DNS, firewalls and VLANs
• Experience with containerisation, Kubernetes and modern CI/CD practices

Desirable

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tooling
• Experience building Linux-based products, appliances or embedded systems
• Experience supporting edge computing or air-gapped environments
• Experience with AWS, hybrid cloud or distributed infrastructure
• Familiarity with software supply chain security and SBOM management
• Background in secure infrastructure or regulated environments (e.g. defence, critical systems)
• Contributions to open-source Linux or OS infrastructure tooling
• Experience building developer platforms and internal engineering tooling

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