Autonomy Engineer

Vatn Systems

$100K — $120K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Strong engineering foundation - CS, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mathematics, or Physics
  • 3+ years of production experience in C++, Python, or Rust in a Linux environment
  • Experience with robust, data-driven software development
  • Quick adaptation to complex, established codebases
  • Proven success in simulation and field testing

Responsibilities

  • Develop motion, path, behavior planning, and control systems for AUVs
  • Build autonomy features for navigation, collision avoidance, and multi-vehicle coordination
  • Ensure algorithms are resilient in challenging conditions like degraded sensors or dynamic environments
  • Manage technical trade-offs involving performance, safety, and mission specifics
  • Collaborate with perception and sensor engineers to enable effective autonomy decisions
  • Transform prototype capabilities into reliable, fielded behaviors, including test support on-site

Benefits

  • Opportunity to see the impact of your work quickly with field testing and deployments
  • Engage in a fast-paced, iterative development environment
  • Chance to work on cutting-edge autonomy technology for maritime applications
  • Collaborative work atmosphere with direct feedback loops
  • Potential for learning and growth within a specialized technical domain
Full Job Description
We're looking for an Autonomy Engineer to build the software that makes our AUVs capable in the real world. You'll own features end to end - from whiteboard to sea trial - and see your code run on vehicles in the water within weeks, not quarters. If you want tight feedback loops between what you write and what a vehicle does, this is that job.
What you'll do
  • Develop motion planning, path planning, behavior planning, and control systems for autonomous underwater vehicles
  • Build autonomy capabilities spanning navigation, collision avoidance, target following, station keeping, formation behavior, and multi-vehicle coordination
  • Make autonomy algorithms robust to the conditions that actually break them: degraded sensors, uncertain environments, dynamic contacts, and GNSS-denied operation
  • Own technical tradeoffs across performance, safety, reliability, latency, compute constraints, and mission requirements
  • Work directly with perception and sensor engineers to turn perception outputs into safe, effective autonomy decisions
  • Mature autonomy from prototype capability into reliable, repeatable, fielded behavior - including time on the water supporting test and deployment

What you bring
  • Strong engineering foundation - CS, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mathematics, Physics, or equivalent hands-on experience
  • 3+ years writing production C++, Python, or Rust in a Linux environment
  • Experience building robust data-driven software
  • Ability to get up to speed quickly in complex, established codebases
  • Proven results in simulation and field tests

Nice to have
  • Maritime sensors, underwater acoustics, or subsea systems
  • Advanced degree (Master's or Ph.D.) in a relevant technical field
  • ROS 2, or comparable robotics middleware
  • Estimation and sensor fusion (INS/DVL, Kalman filtering)
  • Prior startup and/or defense industry experience

Candidates must be U.S.Citizens and able to receive a Security Clearance.

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