Freelance Aircraft Performance Engineer Jobs in Michigan

Description: Backend Software Engineer (Golang)

Status: Exempt

About the Company

Throughout history, transformative advancements in infrastructure have propelled humanity forward—from Vanderbilt’s railroads to Edison’s electrical grid and Eisenhower’s highways. Today, we stand at another pivotal infrastructure moment with Airspace Link’s drone (UAS) infrastructure platform, the backbone for integrating drones safely and seamlessly into the national airspace.

As an FAA-approved Unmanned Aircraft Systems Service Supplier (USS), our flagship cloud platform, AirHub® Portal, provides a comprehensive solution for businesses and government entities seeking to safely manage and scale drone operations across the United States.

Founded in Detroit in 2018, Airspace Link is an award-winning, high-growth, VC-funded startup backed by Altos Ventures, Avanta Ventures, and others. With a remote-first culture, we are driven by our mission to advance the UAS industry while creating an environment where people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives thrive as engineers, UAS consultants, creative thinkers, and passionate innovators.

Job Summary

Do you want to help build the digital infrastructure that will power the future of autonomous aviation?

At Airspace Link, we are building the technology that enables drones to safely integrate into the national airspace. Our platform supports cities, government agencies, and enterprises as they launch and scale drone programs that improve public safety, enhance operational efficiency, and unlock new capabilities.

As a Backend Software Engineer (Golang), you will design, develop, and maintain the backend services and APIs that power AirHub® Portal, our cloud-based drone operations management platform. You will build scalable systems that support complex workflows, geospatial data, and mission-critical operations while helping shape the future of the rapidly evolving UAS industry.

Working within a highly collaborative distributed Agile environment, you will have ownership across the full software development lifecycle—from architecture and design through implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.

You will partner closely with engineers across Platform, Data, Product, and Infrastructure teams, as well as product managers and domain experts, to deliver reliable, scalable, customer-focused solutions. This is an opportunity to work at the intersection of cloud computing, geospatial technology, aviation, and emerging mobility.

Technology Stack

Our engineering teams work with modern cloud-native technologies, including:

· Go (Golang)

· Microsoft Azure

· Kubernetes

· PostgreSQL

· Kafka

· Azure Event Hubs

· REST and gRPC APIs

· Grafana

· VictoriaLogs

· Cloud-native CI/CD practices

· Distributed systems architecture

· Containerized applications

Engineering Environment

Airspace Link engineers have meaningful ownership over the products and systems they build. We work in two-week Agile iterations and encourage engineers to influence technical direction, architecture, and product outcomes.

Engineers are responsible not only for writing code, but also for understanding customer needs, improving system reliability, participating in technical decisions, and delivering measurable value.

Our engineering teams are organized around key product and platform areas, including:

· Infrastructure

· Data & Analytics

· Product Applications

· APIs and Backend Services

Engineers have opportunities to collaborate across teams and contribute to a broad range of technical challenges.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs powering AirHub® Portal.
• Build cloud-native applications and distributed systems using Go (Golang), Kubernetes, and modern engineering practices.
• Develop highly reliable services that support drone operations, geospatial workflows, and customer-facing capabilities.
• Take ownership of complex features from initial design through deployment, monitoring, optimization, and iteration.
• Participate in architecture discussions and contribute to technical decisions that improve scalability, reliability, security, and maintainability.
• Design and implement RESTful and gRPC APIs supporting internal and external applications.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Platform, Data, UAS experts, and customer-facing teams to deliver solutions aligned with customer needs.
• Build and maintain automated testing practices to ensure software quality and reliability.
• Improve system observability, performance, and operational excellence through monitoring, logging, and proactive optimization.
• Participate in code reviews, technical reviews, and engineering discussions while providing thoughtful feedback.
• Identify opportunities to improve development processes, tooling, and engineering practices.
• Mentor and support other engineers through knowledge sharing, technical guidance, and collaboration.
• Maintain adherence to secure software development practices and contribute to a strong security culture.
• Contribute to engineering planning and adapt to evolving business priorities.

Requirements:

• 5–7+ years of professional software engineering experience building production SaaS applications, APIs, or cloud-based platforms.
• Strong experience developing backend services using Go (Golang).
• Experience designing and building RESTful and/or gRPC APIs.
• Experience developing distributed systems and cloud-native applications.
• Experience working with Kubernetes and containerized environments.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure or another major cloud platform (AWS/GCP).
• Strong SQL skills and experience working with relational databases such as PostgreSQL.
• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging technologies such as Kafka or Azure Event Hubs preferred.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, API design, performance optimization, and scalable      systems.
• Familiarity with modern authentication and authorization standards including OAuth2, JWT, and role-based access control.
• Experience implementing production software development best practices, including automated testing, CI/CD, and code review processes.
• Strong collaboration skills with the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, and customer-facing teams.
• Ability to independently solve complex technical problems and make thoughtful engineering decisions.