Front End Engineer (AU) at DroneShield Group Pty Ltd – Sydney, New South Wales

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$190 million in 2025, representing growth of more than 400% year-on-year, with 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

As a Front End Engineer, you will contribute to the development of DroneSentry-C2, DroneShield’s real-time command and control platform. The product presents live sensor data, geospatial information and drone tracking in high-pressure, mission-critical environments where performance, reliability and clarity are essential. You will work closely with other engineers to build responsive, scalable user interfaces that support real-world operational decision-making.

Responsibilities, Duties and Expectations

• Drive technical decisions on component architecture, state management and performance optimisation.
• Build features and improvements from concept through to delivery, working closely with the software engineering team.
• Own front end performance for applications where latency and responsiveness directly impact user outcomes.
• Work with real-time data streams and protocols, including WebSockets, ensuring robust reconnection logic and state synchronisation.
• Debug and resolve complex production issues across system boundaries when they impact the front end.
• Contribute to improving engineering practices, including testing, CI/CD, build performance and overall front end reliability.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• Degree in Computer Science or a similar technical field of study, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience working with contemporary React and modern TypeScript frameworks and libraries.
• Experience designing component architectures that other engineers can effectively build upon.
• Experience with complex state machines, optimistic updates and real-time data synchronisation.
• Experience consuming REST APIs and WebSockets, including error handling, retry logic and offline resilience.
• Experience with front end testing tools such as React Testing Library, Vitest, Playwright or similar.
• Familiarity with monorepos, micro-frontends or other front end scaling patterns.
• Comfortable working with Docker, Git including complex workflows, Linux or Unix command line tools and debugging network issues.

What sets you apart

• Experience with mapping and geospatial visualisation libraries such as Leaflet, Maplibre/Mapbox or Deck.gl will set you apart.
• Experience contributing to design systems or complex component libraries is desirable.
• Previous start-up or scale-up experience, or experience working in safety-critical, defence or aerospace environments is highly desirable.

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