Jacob Crabill
Staff Software Engineer at Shield AI
Bend, Oregon, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJacob Crabill is a Staff Software Engineer with 12 years of experience building avionics, embedded systems, and large-scale simulation and comms platforms for VTOL/UAV programs. He led software architecture at Volansi—covering autopilot, mission systems, ground control, and cloud relays—and later drove task-level planning and behavior-tree tooling at Shield AI. His hands-on expertise spans low-level STM32 MCU drivers, real-time RTOS work (PX4/NuttX), CAN/FDCAN integrations, and high-performance scientific computing with CUDA and MPI. Jacob uniquely bridges aerodynamic design and high-order CFD methods with practical systems engineering, having worked from GPU supercomputers down to peripheral device drivers. An active open-source contributor, he added STM32H7 and SocketCAN support to NuttX/PX4 and improved UAVCAN sensor integrations, highlighting deep hardware-software fluency. Based in Bend, Oregon, he combines technical leadership, mentoring, and a knack for shrinking complex build systems and simulation stacks.
12 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
B.S. Mechanical Engineering Engineering Physics; Aerospace Concentration, B.S. Mechanical Engineering Engineering Physics; Aerospace Concentration at Kettering UniversityDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Aerospace Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Stanford University
Stackoverflow
83reputation
3kreached
0answers
2questions
Github Skills (27)
c-language10
nuttx10
px410
autopilot10
mcu10
abstraction-layer10
c1110
microcontroller10
c1710
uca10
rtos10
device-driver10
sys10
system-integration10
socketcan10
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
PX4/PX4-Autopilot
Oct 2019 - Aug 2022
PX4 Autopilot Software
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:102 reviews, 112 commits, 25 PRs in 2 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Jacob primarily contributed to the UAVCAN sensor driver implementation within the PX4 Autopilot codebase. Their work involved bug fixes for sensor drivers like optical flow and GNSS, specifically addressing integration timespan issues and multi-publisher support. They also overhauled sensor bridge drivers and added support for heater control on the IO MCU, demonstrating a focus on improving sensor integration and hardware-level functionality. Furthermore, they integrated improvements for STM32H7 FDCAN drivers and addressed related messaging RAM issues, and improved the sensor support by adding device IDs for improved data collection.
multicopteravoidancedroneuasraspberry-pi
apache/nuttx
May 2020 - May 2022
Apache NuttX is a mature, real-time embedded operating system (RTOS)
Role in this project:Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:12 reviews, 1 PR, 22 comments in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Jacob primarily contributed to the embedded operating system, NuttX, by adding support for the STM32H7 family of microcontrollers. Their work involved configuring clock sources for the FDCAN peripheral, integrating SocketCAN functionality, and enabling hardware-level CAN filters. They also added FDCAN3 support and configured the Nucleo-H743zi2 board for SocketCAN. The contributions show a strong focus on low-level hardware interaction and device driver development.
operating-systemapachemicrocontrollerrtosoperating
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