How to secure a new position in a leading-edge technology company
When looking for a career change, ambitious people are always drawn to industries where there is a substantial economic dislocation. These always generate the most interesting business opportunities but typically do not already have an existing pool of expertise.
The drone industry is a perfect example of this. It will not have escaped your attention that Ukraine is still fighting a war after four years that was predicted by some ‘experts’ to last for less than four days. Much of this is due to their morale and courage, but it is the military dislocation of drone warfare against high value targets that has been a significant factor.
You may have moral scruples about the defence industry, which is understandable. The Baltic states and many other historically oppressed countries have no such luxury. They realised in 2022 that should Ukraine fall, then they would likely be the next target. They took in Ukrainian economic refugees and provided both financial and technological support.
Alberts Spila is the co-founder of Latvian enterprise DK NEJET. He started by supplying protective clothing for the military and soon became aware of the opportunities in the nascent but fast-growing drone industry.
DK NEJET describes itself as a ‘software-first defence technology company, building complete autonomous UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) security architectures’. Their core activities are summarised thus: ‘we engineer, we build, we train’.
Their biggest challenge is not in building these systems, or even attracting interest from their clients, which include several Ministries of Defence. Their key focus is finding new technical people, to innovate and support growth.
DK NEJET’s technical recruitment challenges fall into several key categories: first, they need to find people expert in writing firmware applications for bespoke board-level hardware. This is to create the ‘swarm intelligence’ drones that can destroy expensive pieces of military hardware protected by leading-edge countermeasures, both physical and electronic.
Then, they need to enable their drones to be flown to the target by operators in remote locations. Finally, the drones must operate autonomously when close to their targets, while delivering back accurate information on outcome of the mission.
The people who could potentially design and engineer these technical objectives are easily identifiable. Some are completing relevant courses at universities. Others have picked up the skills via their own research, perhaps also playing computer games, such as Arma 3, XCOM 2 or even Grand Theft Auto.
As with all technical hires, the challenge is to make sure they are not just great engineers but also great team players. They need to be able to communicate with their peers as well as with the project managers, who are focused on delivering on time and to budget.
Long ago, everyone clocked in for work at the same time and there were regular meetings to ensure that objectives were agreed, and individual tasks monitored. This concept died with the onset of Zoom meetings during the COVID lock-down. Face-to-face contact is always preferable for solving complex communication issues.
Today, DK NEJET has over 200 people and operates across several territories. Its research, development and production are based in Latvia, its Nordic strategic partnerships are managed from Norway, its combat-tested insight and rapid iteration is based in Ukraine, and its headquarters are located in the Netherlands.
Alberts also explained they also had engineers working in some other countries, which were either of strategic value or just the places where the high-quality engineers had chosen to live. DK NEJET’s human resources activity is keenly focused on how to ensure these people feel both wanted and appreciated.
If all this seems a little too technical for your own background, then you might consider the third part of DK NEJET’s activity: education. You can have all the fancy engineering solutions you like, but unless people can learn how to use them, the whole exercise is much harder.
If you enjoy learning about complex technologies and can then communicate that passion and expertise, your future might in education and consultancy. People can only learn so much from technical documentation. All of us have fond memories of teachers who had good communications skills as well as true empathy. They cared about us as human beings.
If you would like to know more about the drone industry, an obvious place to start is at a trade show. The Nordic Defence & Security Conference is from September 22–23, 2026 at the Scandic Hell Hotel near Stjørdal, Norway. https://www.nordsec-conference.no
But my attention was also drawn to a very different type of event, The Military International Drone Racing Tournament (MIDRT) from 14–18 September 2026 at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK.
It is interesting to note that one of the most traditional military establishments in the world is not just keeping up with the times but also trying to make the process fun and entertaining at the same time. https://www.midrt.org
If you are interested in employment in the Drone Industry, you might want to send an initial enquiry to DK NEJET. My practical advice for eliciting a swift reply is first to explain who you are and then why you think you might be able to help.
Most important, you should make this initial enquiry very brief indeed and to the point. Long-winded unsolicited applications are often filed away or ignored completely.
I am sure that any verbose, especially Artificial Intelligence generated e-mails from evil people will be expertly destroyed by DK NEJET, long before they hit their intended target.
DK NEJET: https://dk-nejet.eu
About the Author
Mike Southon
Mike Southon is Chief Editor of Startup Mafia, busy tuning Estonians into Unicorns and helping promote them worldwide
More details and other his other articles here: https://startupmafia.eu/author/mikesouthon
