Lead Autonomy Engineer

Essential Functions

• Lead a team to develop innovative solutions to address technical challenges derived from customer requirements
• Serve as a subject matter expert in emerging mission autonomy technologies
• Support or lead marketing and proposal efforts in mission autonomy
• Support or lead managing and tasking team to achieve program milestones
• Take primary responsibility for prime and customer-facing interactions
• Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in mission autonomy and other areas relevant to Scientific Systems
• Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to advance R&D roadmaps

Requirements

• The role does require the ability to sit or stand at a desk and work on a computer for prolonged periods of time.
• This role may require occasional travel when necessary.
• May require the ability to push/pull/lift up to 15 pounds.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a US DOD Security Clearance

Qualifications

• Basic Qualifications: Bachelor of Science degree in Math, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Physical Science, Operations Research, Data Science, or equivalent experience and 7+ years of progressive autonomy technologies experience including team leadership in a related industry, a Master degree and 5+ years of related engineering experience, or a Ph.D. degree and 2+ years working in a related engineering role
• Experience working in a team leadership role in a related industry
• Proven track record of leading proposals and winning contracts
• Proven track record of leading programs in the principal investigator role or similar experience
• Experience in building and integrating software for edge platforms
• Experience with C/C++, Python, and/or project-specific required languages (e.g. Java, Rust, etc.)
• Experience assisting with non-technical programmatic priorities as needed, including staff planning, budget estimation and tracking, and customer-facing interactions
• Background in robotics technologies related to motion planning, behavior modeling, or decision-making and their accompanying algorithms
• Experience with simulation tools and environments (e.g., AFSIM, NGTS) for validation, verification, and training

Preferred Qualifications

• M.S. or Ph.D. degrees
• Familiar with AI/ML standard libraries and tools
• Experience working in Linux-based development environments
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
• Experience working on both classical autonomy and machine learning and the combination of the two, blending rule-based systems with learning-based methods such as reinforcement learning and generative methods to achieve resilient, adaptive behavior
• Experience developing software modules that combine planning, decision-making, and behavior execution in dynamic, adversarial environments
• Experience implementing and testing behavior architectures such as multi-agent collaboration, target engagement, payload management, reconnaissance, and engagement in adversarial scenarios
• Able to analyze mission logs to diagnose failures and optimize models for iterative development
• Excellent oral and written communication skills including technical writing skills
• Ability to identify and creatively solve complex problems