Open roles

Stendr is building a vertically integrated European defence company focused on sovereign systems for the modern battlefield.

Our first product is a distributed radar network designed to provide resilient, persistent sensing across large areas. The architecture is passive-by-default and built around distributed, low-cost nodes rather than a small number of exquisite systems, making the network harder to detect, harder to suppress and easier to deploy at scale.

Radar is our entry point. Our broader ambition is to build across the defence stack: sensing, software, effectors and the infrastructure required to connect them.

We are moving rapidly from development into operational deployment, with Ukraine as an important validation environment and the High North and NATO's eastern flank as natural markets for expansion.

We are assembling a team of exceptional engineers and operators from companies including Palantir, Helsing and other leading technology and defence organisations.

We are looking for a Head of Business Development to build Stendr's commercial presence across European defence.

This is not a traditional account-management role.

At our stage, the job is to create trust, gain access to the right decision-makers and turn operational capability into real programmes, deployments and contracts.

You will work directly with the CEO, CPO and technical leadership to identify where Stendr can have the greatest operational impact, develop relationships with governments and military users, and build the commercial pathways that take the company from field validation to scaled procurement.

The initial geographical focus will be the Nordics and NATO's eastern flank, particularly Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Ukraine. Norway is already a core market for Stendr, while Germany will initially be developed alongside our German-based product leadership.

Over time, you will help determine where Stendr builds deeper country-level commercial teams.

What you will do

Build senior relationships across European Ministries of Defence, armed forces, procurement organisations and relevant government institutions.

• Build senior relationships across European Ministries of Defence, armed forces, procurement organisations and relevant government institutions.
• Open doors that would otherwise take an early-stage company years to access.
• Develop Stendr's go-to-market strategy across the Nordics, Poland, Ukraine and other priority European markets.
  
• Identify operational problems where Stendr's sensing architecture can create immediate value, particularly around airspace surveillance, counter-UAS, border protection and protection of strategic areas.
• Move opportunities from initial military interest through trials, LOIs, contracts and scaled procurement.
• Build relationships with primes, defence technology companies and other ecosystem partners where
  partnering creates a faster route to deployment.
• Work closely with users and technical teams to translate operational requirements into product priorities.
• Spend meaningful time with customers in the field rather than operating primarily through conferences and procurement processes.
• Develop a rigorous commercial pipeline and maintain clarity on stakeholders, procurement pathways, budgets and decision processes.
• Represent Stendr with senior military, government and industry stakeholders.
• Help shape Stendr's broader European commercial organisation as the company scales.

• Stendr has direct and trusted relationships with the critical defence stakeholders across its priority European markets.
• Operational validation has been converted into a credible pipeline of government programmes, trials and procurement opportunities.
• Stendr has secured its first meaningful commercial agreements and established clear routes toward larger programmes.
• We understand which European markets deserve dedicated commercial investment and which can be served regionally.
• Customer feedback is flowing directly into product development and helping determine where Stendr expands next.
• Stendr is increasingly viewed not simply as an emerging radar company, but as a credible European defence technology partner

There is no single background that defines the right candidate, but the strongest candidates will combine credibility, access and commercial intensity.

You are likely to have:

There is no single background that defines the right candidate, but the strongest candidates will combine credibility, access and commercial intensity.

You are likely to have:

• A deep network across European defence, particularly within the Nordics and/or Eastern Europe.
• Established relationships with senior military officers, Ministries of Defence, procurement organisations or national security stakeholders.
• Experience inside an armed force, Ministry of Defence, defence prime, defence technology company or a combination of these.
• A strong understanding of how European defence procurement actually works: formally and informally.
• Experience navigating complex, long-cycle government sales while maintaining urgency.
• Evidence that you can originate opportunities rather than simply manage existing accounts.
• The ability to understand technically complex products and communicate their operational value without needing to be the engineer in the room.
• Strong judgement about when to pursue formal procurement, operational trials, partnerships or alternative routes to deployment.
• The presence and credibility to operate comfortably with generals, government officials, engineers and founders.
• Excellent English. Additional European languages are valuable.

Direct experience selling radar is not required. Deep understanding of defence customers, trust within the ecosystem and the ability to create and close opportunities matter more.

The person

Stendr operates differently from a traditional defence company.

We move quickly, operate with incomplete information and expect senior people to create structure rather than wait for it.

We are therefore looking for someone who:

• Has exceptional agency and operates without needing a large organisation around them.
• Is commercially aggressive without becoming transactional.
• Builds genuine long-term trust rather than relying on persistent account management.
• Is comfortable personally opening doors, developing opportunities and closing deals.
• Can move between strategy and execution without seeing either as beneath them.
• Is intellectually curious enough to quickly develop a strong understanding of radar, sensing and the modern kill chain.
• Is willing to spend significant time travelling and with customers.
• Wants to build the commercial organisation of a major European defence company rather than inherit one.

We value people who can think from first principles. For this role, however, existing defence credibility and relationships are a significant part of what we are hiring for.

Why Stendr

European defence is undergoing a structural change.

Governments need substantially more capability, faster procurement and sovereign European alternatives. At the same time, technologies proven in recent conflicts are changing how sensing, command-and-control and effectors are built and deployed.

Stendr has been created to take advantage of that transition.

You would join at the point where the technology begins moving from development into operational deployment, with significant responsibility for determining where and how it reaches the market.

This is an opportunity to build the commercial foundations of a European defence company from the beginning rather than optimise an existing sales organisation.

We’re hiring a supply chain manager to help us scale the production of our systems.

Stendr is a Norwegian defence technology company building AI-native hardware and software for the modern battlefield. We focus on sovereign European capability, developing systems designed for autonomy, resilience, and real-world deployment.

Based in Oslo, we are an early-stage company with ambitious growth plans and close collaboration with operators, industry, and policy stakeholders. Our mission is to help strengthen Europe's technological and strategic independence in defence.

Stendr builds VAKR, a sensor network that detects small drones — including ones that are RF-silent.

You take purchasing, stock and shipping off the engineers and run them: one bill of materials that is true, parts, an inventory the team trusts, and hardware that arrives at a test site or a unit with its paperwork in order. Our hardware lead decides what we build and how; you make sure it can be bought, stored, kitted and shipped on the date.

‍
What you'll own

• The bill of materials. One controlled BOM per node and hub variant: part numbers, revisions, approved sources and alternates, lead times, unit cost at 10, 50 and 100 units, and origin and export classification per line. Engineers choose the parts; you keep the list true through the spring design changes.
• Purchasing. All ordering from distributors and specialty vendors: quotes, orders, the order log, receiving. Second sources or stock cover for every single-source part with a long lead time. Supplier terms as volumes grow.
• Inventory. A stock count and asset register of everything the company owns, from radios and amplifiers to batteries, cases and cable, with serial numbers and locations. Component stock, development units and spares kept counted; kits packed for field tests and trips. You set up and run the inventory and purchasing tool that replaces the spreadsheets.
• Shipping and delivery. Packaging, transport, customs and dangerous-goods paperwork for lithium batteries, to Norway and Ukraine for the first delivery batch; spares packages and the return loop for repairs.
• Build support. Parts kitted and on the bench when a build starts, in-house or at a build partner. Supplier quotes and lead times for the build-route options.

Working with

The hardware lead owns the electronics and chooses components; the RF lead owns the antennas and the RF chain; the mechanical lead owns the mechanical design and the programme. You are the one person on purchasing, stock and shipping, and you work with all of them daily along with the Operations manager.

• First 90 days. Stock count and asset register done. Purchasing taken over from the engineers. The controlled BOM in place with lead times and export classification per line. Long-lead parts for the spring build ordered.
• By Spring 2027. Source or stock cover for every critical part. Quotes and lead times on the table for the build-route decision. ERP tool running.
• Summer 2027. Parts kitted for the pilot build. Shipments to trials run with full paperwork.
• Autumn 2027. The first delivery batch packed, documented and ready to ship, with spares.

• Three or more years in purchasing, supply chain or logistics for electronics hardware, in a company where you did the work yourself.
• You have run a bill of materials and an inventory and kept both accurate.
• Shipping with real constraints: customs, dangerous goods, export paperwork.
• Able to work in Norway, and eligible for Norwegian security clearance.

Good to have:

• Defence, aerospace, unmanned systems or another regulated hardware sector.
• Exposure to contract manufacturers or a production ramp.
• Export control in practice: Norwegian licences, EU dual-use rules, US-origin content.
• Norwegian language. Willing to travel to Ukraine.

Oslo-based, on-site. Competitive compensation and equity. Norwegian or EU/EEA citizenship required.

We’re hiring an embedded software engineer to help build the low level architecture for our VAKR sensor system.

Stendr is a Norwegian defence technology company building AI-native hardware and software for the modern battlefield. We focus on sovereign European capability, developing systems designed for autonomy, resilience, and real-world deployment.

Based in Oslo, we are an early-stage company with ambitious growth plans and close collaboration with operators, industry, and policy stakeholders. Our mission is to help strengthen Europe's technological and strategic independence in defence.

Stendr builds VAKR, a sensor network that detects small drones — including ones that are RF-silent. A node consists of a software-defined radio with multiple coherent receive channels and an onboard FPGA, streaming samples over PCI Express to a host computer. The processing is split: pulse compression runs on the FPGA, the rest of the detection chain runs in Rust on the host. Your job is to implement that pipeline: make it run live, keep it fast, and keep it close to the hardware.

• Implement the DSP pipeline: every stage from raw samples to detections. The signal processing is designed by our research side; you make it correct, fast, and verified against the reference.
• Write the real-time part: threads, buffers, priorities, latency. The radio streams samples over PCI Express. No sample may be lost without us knowing it.
• Keep it fast: profiling, SIMD, fixed point. Speed is checked in CI the same way tests are.
• Work on the hardware side: the radio's firmware, drivers, PCI Express, timing.
• Own quality: tests, benchmarks, golden files, releases.

30 days
The pipeline runs on your machine, you have flashed a board, and your first benchmark is in CI.

90 days
The live path runs in real time with margin, and the numbers proving it are in CI.

6 months
The pipeline runs live through a full field test, and sample accounting holds.

• Have extensive experience in Rust or C/C++.
• Have worked in constrained environments: limited CPU, memory, or power. Our compute budget is small and fixed.
• Know what the machine does with your code: memory, cache, threads.
• Have written and debugged numerical code: FFTs, filters, correlation, fixed point.
• Have built something where timing mattered and lost data was a bug — audio, robotics, drivers, games, trading, or similar.
• Use AI tools as a catalyst.
• Have worked close to hardware: datasheets, C libraries, debugging problems that turn out to be a cable.
• Have experience with the Linux kernel, Linux drivers, and Yocto.

Even better if you

• Have FPGA experience (VHDL/Verilog).
• Have done GPU computing (CUDA, Metal, wgpu, or similar).
• Have worked with software-defined radio.
• Speak Norwegian

Radar knowledge is not required. We teach the domain.

Oslo-based, on-site. Competitive compensation and equity. Norwegian or EU/EEA citizenship required.

HARDWARE - EMBEDDED SYSTEMS - SENSOR INTEGRATION - DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY

We're hiring an electronics & cybernetics engineer to join a founding engineering trio, alongside a mechanical engineer and a software engineer.

Stendr is a Norwegian defence technology company building AI-native hardware and software for the modern battlefield. We focus on sovereign European capability, developing systems designed for autonomy, resilience, and real-world deployment.

Based in Oslo, we are an early-stage company with ambitious growth plans and close collaboration with operators, industry, and policy stakeholders. Our mission is to help strengthen Europe's technological and strategic independence in defence.

You will own the electronics domain end-to-end: schematic capture, PCB layout, embedded firmware, and sensor integration. Together with the software engineer, you'll shape the overall system architecture — with a particular focus on how sensor hardware feeds AI evaluation and inference pipelines.

This is a hands-on role in a company moving from architecture into physical prototyping and first deliveries. You'll work across analogue, digital, and RF — power systems, sensor front-ends, compute interfaces, and the electromagnetic discipline to make it all work in harsh environments.

• Design, prototype, and bring to production the electronics for Stendr's sensor and compute nodes — power systems, carrier boards, sensor interfaces
• Develop embedded firmware for microcontrollers, sensor front-ends, and communication interfaces
• Integrate and characterise multi-sensor payloads — radar, cameras, RF receivers, positioning systems
• Own schematic capture and PCB layout and manage board fabrication and assembly with external partners
• Collaborate tightly with the mechanical engineer on thermal management, EMC, connectors, and environmental hardening
• Define hardware abstraction layers and driver interfaces with the software engineer, making the firmware/software boundary a deliberate decision
• Contribute to reverse engineering and analysis of existing sensor systems to inform product development

30 days
You understand the sensor architecture, the mission, and the constraints. You've reviewed the current hardware design and are already making decisions about the first board spins.

90 days
You own the electronics domain outright. Prototypes are on the bench, firmware is running, and sensors are talking to the software stack.

6 months
Production-intent hardware is being tested in the field. The electronics you've designed are robust, manufacturable, and integrated cleanly with mechanical and software. New hires look at the system and see something they want to work on.

• Have an MSc or equivalent in cybernetics, electronics, electrical engineering, robotics, or mechatronics — and the hands-on ability to back it up
• Are fluent in analogue and digital electronics design, schematic capture, and PCB layout
• Write embedded firmware on microcontrollers and have worked with at least one RTOS
• Are comfortable with lab equipment and use it to find the truth, not confirm your assumptions
• Can read a datasheet and a reference design and turn them into working hardware
• Have a builder mentality: you want to make things that go into the field, not just simulate them
• Take ownership of your domain end-to-end and don't wait for specs — you help write them
• Are motivated by the mission: strengthening allied defence capabilities with modern, accessible technology

Even better if you

• Have experience from the defence or aerospace sector
• Know your way around radar system design, RF electronics, or electronic warfare concepts
• Have worked with high-speed digital interfaces and compute platforms (Jetson, FPGAs, or similar)
• Have brought an electronics product from prototype through certification to production
• Are familiar with relevant defence standards

Based in or near Oslo. You'll work as a peer alongside the mechanical and software engineers — not in a siloed department. Lab and workshop access provided. Flexible in structure, but proximity matters — this role requires being in the same room with hardware.

Norwegian or EU/EEA citizenship required for defence security clearance eligibility.

Competitive compensation and a generous equity package for the right candidate.

If you want to build the electronics for systems where the stakes are real and the constraints are physical, apply.