Senior Autonomous Systems Engineer

Job Description

The Army Soldier and Weapon Systems Department (N214) mission is to provide world class engineering workforce for combat, testing, and training capabilities to provide the U.S. Army an asymmetric advantage. Key sponsors of the Department work program include CPE Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (Orlando, FL), CPE Ground – Soldier Systems (Fort Belvoir, VA), DEVCOM Soldier System Center (Natick, MA), Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Team (Fort Leavenworth, KS), PAE Fires and CPE Aviation (Huntsville, AL), CPE Ground – Combat Platforms and DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (Ann Arbor, MI), Army Test and Evaluation Command (Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD) and CPE Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (Edgewood, MD).

Roles and Responsibilities

• Leverage expertise of real-time planning, optimization, and control algorithms for intelligent and autonomous systems to enable the Army’s strategic vision to reduce the burden on soldiers and increase combat power.
• Work closely with senior government civilian and military leaders to define and execute MITRE’s work across several Army acquisition offices. Regular sponsor interaction will be required.
• This position is in Huntsville, AL and open to qualified Lead step and above applicants.

Basic Qualifications

• Typically requires a minimum of 5 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 3 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Technical background in disciplines of relevance in one or more of the following: computer vision, deep learning, machine learning, control theory, human machine teaming, and multi-robot systems.
• Applicable work experience related to Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.
• Proven experience in developing, testing, and acquiring data-driven solutions that meet military operational needs while working to understand specific areas for advanced autonomy research.
• Ability to perform technical analysis of existing, proposed, and in-development autonomy technologies.
• Experience in advising US Military on the acquisition and deployment of new autonomy capabilities.
• Experience leading engineering and automation teams for the integration of algorithms for intelligent and autonomous systems.
• Experience in identifying gaps and shortfalls in operational performance and proposing effective mitigations.
• Experience engaging sponsors with successful impacts and outcomes, and establishing and maintaining strategic partnerships.
• Experience with the use of Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA).
• Experience with CUAS operations.
• Prior experience partnering with industry and academia to deliver military capabilities.
• Critical thinking, analytic, and problem-solving skills – comfortable working in dynamic settings where task objectives may evolve or need to be shaped, or creative solutions to task impediments must be identified.
• Excellent interpersonal and technical communication skills, with the ability to author technical reports, present briefings, and persuasively speak to audiences of all backgrounds, including executives or senior customers.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an interdisciplinary team environment, establish and leverage a diverse professional network, and integrate contributions from a variety of resources (people, tools, organizations).
• Must have an active Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret U.S. Government issued Security Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• An advanced degree in Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, etc.
• Current/Active Top Secret Clearance.
• Prior experience developing or assessing Army systems or operations, reflected by: Working knowledge of Army organizations, missions, roles/responsibilities, and relationships.
• Extensive experience working on Autonomous Platforms.
• Extensive experience with Autonomy capabilities and features.
• Extensive experience with rapid prototyping, including fabrication and electronics.
• Extensive experience with field testing autonomous systems.
• Extensive experience with CUAS operations.
• Extensive experience with Army’s IAMD mission space.
• Demonstrated ability to take risks and lead work with partial insights, and operate effectively autonomously.
• Demonstrated ability to build collaboration across organizational units.
• Demonstrates collaboration and communication skills to support individual, team, and customer-related interaction.
• Knowledge of advances of Autonomy evaluation capabilities in industry and academia.
• Domain knowledge of swarming systems, agentic AI, manufacturing robotics, and/or missile defense.
• Knowledge of Autonomy Techniques Real-time vehicle path planning, Sensor fusion, System identification, Model predictive control, Robust control design, Computational geometry, and/or Model-based design.
• Developed, proposed and executed research in the field of autonomy and/or missile defense.