Principal Autonomy Software Engineer
August 11
🏡 Remote – Anywhere in California
Description
• Technical lead in autonomy, robotics, and machine learning software for the Advanced Capabilities Team • Design, build, and integrate onboard and off-board airborne autonomy capabilities to: • Reduce pilot workload and assist pilots with nominal and emergency flight procedures. • Enable cargo aircraft to safely fly without a human pilot onboard. • Support automated mission planning. • Enable real-time contingency planning and safe execution of contingency procedures and maneuvers. • Work closely with the R&D software engineering manager to understand team objectives, short term milestones, long term milestones, and technology roadmap. • Contribute to concept of operations (CONOPs) design and requirements derivation for autonomy software systems. • Lead architecture design and perform architecture and technology trade-off analysis, accounting for short term objectives and long term goals in decision making. • Collaborate closely with the rest of the R&D software team throughout the research, design, implement, and test cycle. • Drive, provide input on, and approve key decisions relating to system architecture and design, software implementation details, algorithm selection, tool/library usage, and more. • Write, test, document and review code according to Merlin’s development standards as needed. • Review design inputs and code written by the rest of the R&D software team. • Act as a mentor for the team. • Collaborate across Merlin to develop novel systems to solve the toughest problems in aviation and autonomy.
Requirements
• Degree in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics Engineering, or a related subject. • 10+ years of professional experience developing software for physical systems such as aircraft, robotics, or medical devices. • Subject matter expert in at least one of these fields: perception, reasoning, decision making, planning, and control. • Familiar with the following areas relating to the autonomy software stack: • Perception: detection, processing, and tracking using cameras, radar, and/or LIDAR. • Reasoning and decision making: state machines, behavior trees, hierarchical task networks, petri nets. • Scheduling and motion planning: global and local spatio-temporal planners, preferably in the air domain. • Human-machine interaction: use of algorithms and autonomy to reduce crew mental and physical workload. • System reliability: monitoring of subsystems and identifying contingencies. • State estimation and control. • Robotics middleware software such as ROS/2. • Ability to interpret, develop, and integrate abstract code to facilitate efficiency, modularity, and reusability. • Years of experience providing tech leadership to a team of at least 5-7 engineers at different levels. • Experience with Linux and open-source development tools. • Proficiency in modern software development workflows and practices, including version control, pipelines, and unit testing, and peer review. • Experience with overall product development cycle, including design, testing, and troubleshooting at the system level as well as at the software component level. • Proficiency writing both Python and C++. • Familiarity with simulation software, especially aircraft simulation.
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