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COREDUMP #020: The Hidden Architecture of Autonomy: How Skydio Drones Think, See, and Connect
Chapters
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| Intro & Teasers
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| Ross's Path to Embedded Engineering
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| Lessons from Kickstarter and Early Projects
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| Transitioning to Boosted Boards and Micro-Mobility
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| Challenges in Embedded Systems and Hardware Development
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| Skydio's Unique Approach to Drone Technology
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| Manufacturing Drones in the U.S.
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| Embedded Engineering Challenges and Safety Considerations
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| Testing and Quality Assurance in Drone Development
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| Future of Skydio and Career Opportunities
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| Closing Thoughts & Reflections
About the webinar
François and Chris sit down with Ross Yeager, VP of Device Platform Software at Skydio, to explore how Skydio builds autonomous drones that operate safely and reliably in the real world. Ross walks through the embedded and software architecture behind Skydio’s platform, including the mix of microcontrollers, SoCs, sensors, and radios onboard each drone. The conversation digs into how these components communicate, how updates are managed across the entire system, and what it takes to debug and improve a safety-critical product when failures happen rarely and often without clean data.
What You’ll Learn
- How Skydio structures its embedded systems across multiple MCUs and Linux-based SoCs
- How AI, perception, and real-time constraints shape on-device decision making
- How drones, docks, controllers, and cloud services communicate through a shared IPC framework
- How Skydio approaches logging, metrics, and instrumentation for rare and high-impact failures
- How testing, simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop are used to validate autonomy at scale
- What’s coming next and how Skydio thinks about evolving the platform over time
Speakers
Ross Yeager, VP of Device Platform Software, Skydio
Ross Yeager
Ross Yeager is the Vice President of Device Platform Software at Skydio, where he leads the teams responsible for the software foundations that power Skydio’s autonomous drones. With more than 15 years of experience spanning embedded systems, firmware, and robotics, Ross has played a key role in scaling Skydio’s software architecture from early prototypes to production-grade, AI-driven flight systems. Before stepping into his current leadership role, he served as Senior Director of Embedded Software Engineering at Skydio and previously held technical positions at Boosted, Inc. and Altera.
Founder & CEO, Memfault
François Baldassari
François Baldassari is the CEO and Founder of Memfault. An embedded software engineer by trade, François was driven to start Memfault by his passion for tooling and automation in software engineering. Prior to Memfault, he ran the firmware team at Oculus and built the operating system at Pebble. François has a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Brown.
Co-Founder & CTO, Memfault
Chris Coleman
Chris Coleman is the CTO and Co-Founder of Memfault. Prior to founding Memfault, Chris was an embedded software engineer at Pebble and Fitbit where he led efforts across the firmware stack and developed a reputation for tracking down and fixing challenging firmware bugs. That, coupled with his passion for using tooling to efficiently deliver high-quality hardware products, drove him to start Memfault.