Autonomy Test & Integration Engineer

Role Overview: We're looking for an Autonomy Test & Integration Engineer to take our perception system from the bench to the open ocean and build the test infrastructure that connects the two. The system detects and tracks vessel traffic for a wing-in-ground-effect craft that takes off and lands on the water. Testing perception on this class of vehicle is a problem very few people have worked on. Half the job happens on the water. You'll go out with our test and operations team, who run the vessels and the campaigns, and handle the perception side: mounting and cabling cameras and radar on boats, calibrating dockside, and collecting data against live vessel traffic. No two sea days give you the same weather, light, and traffic. The job is planning each one tightly, adapting when hardware or the sea won't cooperate, and coming back with data worth keeping. The other half is onshore, building what the field work depends on: replay and hardware-in-the-loop setups that let us rerun a sea day on the bench, calibration tooling that keeps sensor data usable, and the integration path that carries new perception software onto our vehicles. Whether a day's results can be trusted comes down to calibration and process, and both are yours. The team iterates as fast as this infrastructure lets it. Major perception test campaigns are on the calendar for the next year. They'll run on infrastructure and process this role builds between now and then. If you're energized by working at the intersection of cutting-edge innovation, real-world impact, and hands-on engineering, you'll be in the right place - and we'd be thrilled to have you on the team!

What You'll Do: Run perception field tests. Define what a test day must produce, set up and calibrate the perception sensor rigs, and run sensor tests on surrogate vessels with our test and operations team. Do hands-on integration work. Bring software changes onto real vehicle hardware and troubleshoot what breaks in that transition, across every platform the team supports. Own the replay tooling. Operate and extend the hardware-in-the-loop and data-replay infrastructure the team's testing runs on, building on existing recording and evaluation tooling. Keep perception reliable. Track and maintain perception system reliability across every platform the team supports. Test and sign off on software changes. Review changes and decide when they're ready to move from the bench, to hardware-in-the-loop replay, to a surrogate vessel, to a vehicle. Carry capability to missions. Take the perception capabilities the team builds and apply them to customer and U.S. defense missions, working with our mission software team to define the mission-specific functions needed and bringing those needs back to the perception team. Define autonomy test scenarios. As our autonomy work grows beyond alerting, design the scenarios that prove out new autonomy algorithms and run them with our test and operations team.

What You'll Bring: Demonstrated professional experience in robotics, autonomy, or perception software, including hands-on hardware-in-the-loop or data-replay work. Field deployment experience, ideally including sensor testing on boats or a comparable surrogate vehicle. Experience testing software on real hardware, from code review through deployment. Strong C/C++ for real-time or embedded systems, working Python, and comfort administering Linux systems. Eligibility: this position is subject to U.S. export control regulations; applicants must be U.S. persons as defined by ITAR (22 CFR 120.62).

Bonus: familiarity with autonomy algorithm concepts, ARPA radar tracking experience, boating or sea-trials background, ground-truth system experience, basic electrical troubleshooting, DO-178C familiarity. Who We're Looking ForCollaborative Team Player: You know field testing is a team effort. You work closely with perception, autonomy, test, operations, and mission software teams to plan effectively, solve problems in real time, and make sure what you learn on the water gets back to the people building the system. You communicate clearly, especially when conditions change or something isn't ready to move forward. Creative Problem Solver: You're hands-on and like getting to the bottom of why something isn't working. Whether it's a sensor, calibration issue, software integration problem, or test setup, you dig in yourself, troubleshoot across hardware and software, and look for ways to make the underlying tooling or process better — not just get through the test day. Adaptable & Agile: You're comfortable on a boat, not just at a desk. You know field testing rarely goes exactly as planned and can adapt when weather, hardware, vessel traffic, or test conditions change. You stay focused on what the test needs to prove and make good calls about when to adjust, keep going, or stop and regroup. Innovative Mindset: You see the whole path from the bench to hardware-in-the-loop testing to a surrogate vessel and ultimately the vehicle, and you're always looking for ways to make that path faster, more reliable, and more repeatable. You hold a high bar for testing and validation and don't sign off on something simply because the team is in a hurry — you want the data and evidence to know it's ready.