Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration

Responsibilities

• Develop, integrate, validate, and field autonomy software for unmanned air, maritime, space, ground, or effects/expendable platforms.
• Develop mission behaviors, platform-specific control, multi-agent coordination, contingencies, and executive autonomy.
• Lead a small feature crew or sub-program through design, development, integration, and delivery.
• Bring up payload computers; deploy containerized systems; configure onboard compute, sensors, and command-and-control interfaces.
• Own software-in-the-loop, hardware-in-the-loop, vehicle-in-the-loop, and live test validation.
• Collaborate with autonomy, perception, feature, platform integration, autopilot, C2, and government stakeholders.
• Author and negotiate interface control documents and interface contracts.
• Mentor and onboard engineers; participate in hiring and technical growth planning.
• Drive design reviews, documentation, post-mortems, process improvements, and standards compliance.
• Prepare mission-ready systems, coordinate hardware/software compatibility, and support release cadence.
• Travel to test sites and support flight tests, range exercises, on-water trials, integration events, and live mission operations.
• Diagnose and resolve issues across autonomy stacks, payload computers, and embedded systems; perform memory, CPU, and timing profiling.
• Capture mission data, reproduce issues in simulation, and drive fixes into subsequent builds.
• Develop tools and processes for integration, testing, logging, data parsing, reliability, and team efficiency.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 7 years of related experience with a bachelor's degree, 5 years with a master's degree, 4 years with a PhD, or equivalent experience.
• Proficiency in C++ and experience developing or integrating real-time or latency-sensitive systems.
• Proficiency in Linux-based development, embedded systems, shell scripting, and system diagnostics.
• Familiarity with middleware, publish-subscribe, or IPC frameworks used in autonomy or robotics, such as DDS and message buses.
• Hands-on experience supporting demonstrations, exercises, or field and mission tests for unmanned or autonomous systems.
• Experience with autonomy simulation environments for testing and validation.
• Experience leading a small technical team or owning a major capability from design through field delivery.
• Experience mentoring engineers and developing technical talent.
• Experience authoring or negotiating interface contracts or ICDs.
• Strong full-stack troubleshooting, optimization, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with unmanned systems or comparable field-test campaigns.
• Proficiency in Python for scripting, automation, and analysis.
• Experience leading a feature crew, sub-program, or small team in an unmanned-systems context.
• Customer- or partner-facing technical relationship experience.
• Experience with cross-team process, documentation, rigor, or developer-experience improvements.
• Familiarity with autonomy stacks, motion planning, and vehicle-control integration.
• Experience with avionics, spacecraft buses, vessel control, payload computer integration, or hardware-in-the-loop debugging.
• Experience with container orchestration on embedded or payload compute, including k3s, k3d, or Docker.
• Familiarity with PX4, ArduPilot, spacecraft flight software, or vessel autopilots.
• Build-system experience with Conan or CMake and familiarity with CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience developing automation tools for system testing, logging, and data parsing.
• Experience with C2 standards such as A-GRA, UCI, or OMS.
• Familiarity with government-furnished simulation environments such as AFSIM or NGTS.
• Comfort interfacing with Department of Defense stakeholders during field events or technical reviews.

Compensation

• Annual salary range: $234,240–$351,360.