Principal Autonomy Software Engineer

About Us:

Merlin is an early-stage autonomy company, building software to control sophisticated transportation systems. Our mission here at Merlin Labs is to develop hardware and software solutions that deliver the capability for aircraft to fly useful missions autonomously and safely. Our first product will be a certified system to bring automation to existing fixed wing aircraft.

We’re backed by some of the top institutional venture capitalists in the country, our headquarters are located in Boston with hubs in Denver, Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert. Come join our diverse, world class team, made up of people from places like Google, Airbus, Boeing, UTC, the US Navy, and the US Air Force.

About You:

You are an expert in autonomous systems and software who wants to make airplanes that fly themselves. You have hands-on experience and a theoretical background in robotics and autonomy, preferably with experience in aerospace, and have developed technology for autonomous uncrewed vehicles (preferably airborne). You have generalist experience across the software stack, from embedded systems to high level algorithms, in addition to deep specialist knowledge of some of the core areas relevant to Merlin’s future products. You want to focus more on design and guiding how we achieve our technical goals than writing code day-to-day, are comfortable with and competent at working with a team of senior and junior engineers, can make and justify key decisions to the rest of the team and to stakeholders, and want to drive a team’s technical direction in close collaboration with the engineering manager.

Responsibilities:

• 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.

Qualifications:

• 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.

Nice to Haves:

• Familiarity with ML frameworks such as Tensorflow, PyTorch, OpenCV.
• Experience developing sensor fusion algorithms.
• Experience implementing machine learning based perception and planning algorithms, including using deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques.
• Experience with hardware and software integration and debugging.
• Experience with flight testing (uncrewed or crewed aircraft).
• Awareness of aviation certification standards such as DO-178.
• Pilot license and flight experience is a plus.

Merlin Labs offers an innovative, entrepreneurial, and team-focused startup environment. We also offer a top-notch benefits package (health, dental, life, unlimited vacation, and 401k with match) and work/life integration. Being part of the Merlin team allows you to become part of a small team that supports professional development while working together to achieve our mission.

Merlin Labs is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status. All job offers are contingent upon the candidate passing background, export control and reference checks.

Merlin Labs does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from candidates.