Senior Systems Engineer, Mission Autonomy

About the role

This role is responsible for defining the operational logic and architectural integrity of autonomous aircraft systems. You will own the end-to-end decision-making processes, from initial gate pushback to final ground arrival, ensuring flight plans are executed with precision and resilience. Success in this position requires translating high-level objectives into robust software behaviors that perform reliably in real-world conditions. You will work at the intersection of engineering, certification, and flight testing, partnering with diverse stakeholders to advance the state of autonomous flight. The position demands rigorous analysis of system interactions to ensure that autonomy functions meet stringent safety and performance standards. You will serve as the primary systems integrator, bridging the gap between high-level mission goals and low-level control signals. Ultimately, this role shapes the core intelligence that allows unmanned aircraft to operate independently in complex environments.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Analyze heterogeneous flight data and sensor feeds to design normalized data intake pipelines that establish a consistent foundation for autonomous decision-making.
• Architect structural frameworks that convert stringent product requirements into executable controller logic and autonomy functions while maintaining system integrity.
• Orchestrate critical review checkpoints where safety arguments are validated against empirical flight test evidence to ensure alignment with verification protocols.
• Produce and maintain validation artifacts, including test reports and simulation results, that formally verify system behavior against hard requirements and regulatory standards.
• Structure modular data models that represent autonomous behaviors across a wide spectrum of mission profiles, from routine transit to contingency scenarios and edge cases.
• Guide integration test campaigns that exercise the complete autonomy stack, correlating sensor inputs with command outputs to achieve precise control surface actuation.
• Maintain detailed decision trails and architectural documentation to ensure institutional knowledge persists across teams and product iterations, supporting long-term maintainability.
• Collaborate with certification authorities to align product features and verification strategies with evolving regulatory standards for both commercial and defense sectors globally.
• Evaluate empirical performance data from global flight test programs to refine autonomy logic and improve system robustness in diverse operational environments.
• Define system-level interfaces and communication protocols that enable seamless interaction between sensors, compute platforms, and control systems.
• Lead failure mode analysis and hazard assessments to identify potential risks and implement mitigation strategies within the autonomy stack.
• Partner with engineering, operations, and partner organizations to resolve complex integration challenges and ensure alignment on mission objectives.
• Develop and maintain simulation models that replicate real-world conditions, enabling extensive validation of autonomy features before flight testing.
• Drive the adoption of best practices in software engineering, systems thinking, and safety assurance to elevate the maturity of autonomous flight capabilities.

Requirements

• Bring three to five years of experience developing complex systems, with a background in aviation or a related safety-critical industry to provide context for operational realities.
• Apply a strong foundation in systems engineering to craft architectures that meet rigorous safety and performance criteria under constrained conditions.
• Demonstrate the ability to translate abstract requirements into concrete test plans that prove autonomous functionality consistently performs as intended across diverse scenarios.
• Possess professional experience within experimental research and development environments focused on safety-critical systems or subsystems to understand the unique challenges of flight testing.
• Exhibit a disciplined approach where safety considerations are paramount, ensuring that all design decisions support the reliability and predictability of autonomous operations.
• Navigate ambiguous and rapidly evolving technical challenges with agility, balancing competing priorities while maintaining a clear focus on system integrity.
• Deliver new products and features in demanding development settings, showing resilience and adaptability when facing tight schedules and high technical stakes.
• Uphold strict attention to detail when documenting decisions, test results, and architectural changes to support traceability and regulatory compliance.