havocai - Vehicle Autonomy Lead

Remote - United States$175k - $200k1mo ago

Remote Staff NA Robotics Airlines Team Lead Staff Engineer C++Python Linux Team Leadership Observable

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field • 8+ years of experience in robotics, autonomy, autonomous vehicles, unmanned systems, maritime autonomy, aerospace, defense technology, or related technical fields • Strong technical background in vehicle autonomy, motion planning, controls, robotics software, and autonomous system integration • Proven experience leading engineers from a technical perspective, either as a team lead, technical lead, staff engineer, principal engineer, or engineering manager • Experience building and deploying autonomy software on real robotic or autonomous systems • Strong understanding of autonomy software stacks, including planning, control, behaviors, state estimation, sensor integration, simulation, testing, and deployment • Experience working in Linux-based development environments with modern software engineering practices • Strong programming skills in C++ and/or Python • Ability to make sound technical tradeoffs across reliability, safety, performance, maintainability, and schedule • Strong debugging skills across software, hardware, sensors, logs, telemetry, and field operations • Excellent communication skills and ability to align technical and non-technical stakeholders • High ownership, strong judgment, and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments • Passion for mission-critical autonomy and real-world robotic systems • U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance • Experience with autonomous surface vessels, maritime autonomy, naval systems, unmanned boats, or maritime domain awareness • Experience with collision avoidance, COLREGs-aware planning, path planning, trajectory generation, behavior planning, guidance, navigation, or control systems • Experience with multi-agent autonomy, collaborative autonomy, distributed robotic systems, or coordinated vehicle behaviors • Experience with ROS2, DDS, MOOS-IvP, autonomy middleware, or distributed robotics architectures • Experience integrating perception, radar, EO/IR cameras, AIS, GPS/INS, or other maritime sensor modalities into autonomy systems • Experience with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, autonomy verification and validation, and field test programs • Experience supporting government, DoD, defense, or dual-use technology programs • Experience operating in startup or fast-moving product engineering environments • Active or prior security clearance • This role may be based remotely, with preference for candidates located in or willing to work from Boston, MA or Rhode Island. Candidates should be comfortable with regular travel for onsite collaboration, vessel integration, field testing, customer demonstrations, program reviews, and deployments.

Responsibilities

• VEHICLE AUTONOMY LEADERSHIP • Lead the technical execution of the on-vehicle autonomy team • Own autonomy capabilities that run onboard autonomous surface vessels, including navigation, planning, control, behaviors, safety logic, and autonomy execution • Define technical priorities, architecture, interfaces, and development standards for vehicle autonomy systems • Guide autonomy design decisions across reliability, latency, safety, compute constraints, mission performance, and field maintainability • Ensure the vehicle autonomy stack is robust, observable, testable, and ready for real-world maritime operations • TEAM LEADERSHIP & TECHNICAL MENTORSHIP • Lead, mentor, and support a team of autonomy, robotics, planning, and controls engineers • Provide technical guidance through design reviews, architecture reviews, code reviews, test planning, and field-readiness reviews • Help engineers break down complex autonomy problems into executable technical work • Establish strong engineering practices for autonomy development, integration, simulation, testing, and deployment • Create a team culture built on ownership, technical excellence, mission focus, and fast iteration • INTEGRATION, TESTING & FIELD DEPLOYMENT • Drive autonomy capabilities from concept through implementation, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, field testing, and deployment • Support vessel integration, field tests, customer demonstrations, and operational evaluations • Diagnose and resolve autonomy issues using logs, telemetry, vehicle data, simulation results, and field observations • Build feedback loops between field failures, autonomy improvements, and product roadmap decisions • Ensure the team delivers autonomy software that can be operated, debugged, and maintained in real mission environments • CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION • Work closely with perception, mission software, embedded systems, hardware, product, program, and field operations teams • Translate mission needs and product requirements into vehicle autonomy capabilities • Coordinate interfaces between onboard autonomy, mission planning, command and control, sensors, and platform systems • Communicate technical risks, tradeoffs, and progress clearly to engineering and company leadership • Help align vehicle autonomy development with customer needs, deployment timelines, and long-term product strategy

Benefits

• $175K – $200K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus • Our openings span more than one career level. The provided salary depends on many factors, such as work experience and transferable skills, business needs and impact, and market demands. • Upload your resume here to autofill key application fields. • Drop your resume here! • Parsing your resume. Autofilling key fields... • or drag and drop here • We can only hire US Citizens due to our specific industry and government contracts. • Decline to self-identify • Hispanic or Latino - A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. • Hispanic or Latino • White (Not Hispanic or Latino) - A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. • White • Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino) - A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. • Black or African American • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (Not Hispanic or Latino) - A person having origins in any of the peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander • Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino) - A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian Subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. • Asian • American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino) - A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment. • American Indian or Alaska Native • Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino) - All persons who identify with more than one of the above five races. • Two or More Races • Hispanic or Latino • White (Not Hispanic or Latino) • Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino) • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (Not Hispanic or Latino) • Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino) • American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino) • Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino) • I identify as one or more of the classifications of protected veteran listed above • I am not a protected veteran