Autonomy Engineer (Flight Autonomy)

Full Time

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Palo Alto, CA

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Bone

Autonomy Engineer (Flight Autonomy)

We are building autonomy stacks for aerial and ground robots operating in real-world environments. Our systems combine perception, mapping, planning, and control to enable robots to operate reliably outside the lab.

We are looking for engineers who want to design and deploy autonomy systems that run on real robotic platforms.

About the Role

This role owns key components of the autonomy pipeline and the integration surface between autonomy software, autopilot firmware, and operator systems.

Engineers in this role build reliable, production-ready autonomy systems and iterate quickly using flight logs, telemetry, and real-world data.

Responsibilities

  • Autonomy Stack Development (Perception · SLAM · Mapping · Navigation)

  • Design and implement autonomy stacks for aerial and ground robots, including perception, SLAM/VSLAM, mapping, and navigation.

  • Develop visual odometry and VSLAM pipelines and integrate them into the navigation stack.

  • Build 3D mapping and reconstruction capabilities (e.g., NeRF, Gaussian Splatting) for localization, situational awareness, and planning.

  • Implement obstacle detection and avoidance in both static and dynamic environments.

  • Develop local path planning and obstacle avoidance behaviors for real-world scenarios.

  • Build route planning and scheduling logic for operational workflows such as inspection, patrol, or mission execution.

State Estimation & Control

  • Implement and tune state estimation systems using sensor fusion techniques.

  • Design and deploy classical control strategies for aerial or mobile robots.

  • Integrate estimation and control systems with higher-level autonomy modules.

Autopilot & System Integration

  • Integrate autonomy modules with autopilot firmware and operator systems.

  • Own ArduPilot or PX4 integrations including custom flight modes, features, and parameter tuning.

  • Design MAVLink or ROS2 interfaces and mission APIs for control, telemetry, and mission execution.

Data Collection & Observability

  • Design flight data collection strategies including logging structure, triggers, and storage formats.

  • Analyze flight logs and telemetry to drive rapid iteration and debugging.

  • Build tools and pipelines that enable fast experimentation using real-world data.

Simulation & Testing

  • Build and maintain simulation environments for drones or rovers (ArduPilot + Gazebo or similar).

  • Develop SITL and HITL pipelines including scripted missions and regression testing.

  • Support reinforcement learning teams with realistic dynamics models and sensor simulations.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

  • Work with platform engineers to define requirements for telemetry pipelines, data links, and video streaming.

  • Collaborate with machine learning and RL engineers to expose safe interfaces for autonomy policies.

  • Partner with hardware and firmware teams to deploy autonomy features on real vehicles.

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience developing robotics autonomy systems (UAVs, mobile robots, or autonomous vehicles).

  • Strong programming skills in C++ and Python.

  • Experience developing real-time robotics software.

  • Experience debugging systems on embedded Linux platforms.

  • Hands-on experience with ArduPilot, PX4, or similar autopilot firmware.

  • Familiarity with MAVLink and SITL workflows.

Deep expertise in at least two of the following:

  • VSLAM / Visual Odometry

  • 3D Mapping or Reconstruction

  • Motion Planning and Navigation

  • State Estimation and Control (EKF, MPC, LQR)

Additional Experience

  • Experience integrating perception, planning, and control modules using ROS or ROS2.

  • Comfortable running experiments on real hardware and iterating rapidly from flight data.

Preferred Experience

  • Experience building HITL infrastructure and automated regression testing pipelines.

  • Experience deploying autonomy features in complex environments with dynamic obstacles.

  • Familiarity with reinforcement learning for robotics.

  • Experience building simulation environments for autonomy development.

Modern Development Practices

  • Experience using AI-assisted development workflows or LLM-based tooling to accelerate robotics software development and testing.

Why Join

You will work on autonomous robotic systems deployed in real operational environments. This role sits at the intersection of robotics algorithms, real-time software engineering, and system integration, building the autonomy capabilities that enable robots to operate safely and intelligently in the real world. We have offices in Palo Alto (CA) USA and Seoul, Korea. Compensation can range from $100k to $210k (+equity) depending on experience, seniority, and location. Exceptional candidates may be considered outside of this range.