Mission Autonomy Lead Thunder

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Maneuver Dominance team is building Thunder - an autonomous attack rotorcraft built to fight alongside crewed combat aviation to deliver overwhelming mass effects deep beyond the front lines. The team in London builds the Mission System and the autonomy that makes aircraft like Thunder work.

Autonomy is only as good as the link that carries it. Thunder is a compact airframe with weapons sensors and radios competing for the same antenna real estate flying low and in formation in a spectrum that is actively contested. That is the problem you would own.

ABOUT THE JOB

We are seeing a Mission Autonomy Lead on the Thunder team at our Costa Mesa CA this role you will own the Autonomy software stack within Mission Systems for a Thunder owning the software that enables autonomous mission execution. Reporting to the Mission Systems Lead you will cover system design mission planning mission operations perception debrief and software development infrastructure. You will define how the vehicle plans executes perceives and learns from missions autonomously across long ranges of open ocean beyond line of sight.

Your spectrum of support will be diverse in nature and require you to leverage your technical expertise as well as leadership skills to set objectives build cross-functional teams and rapidly drive to completion. The ability to leverage your intuition and prior experience will be key in making sure the right design analysis and test steps are completed to ensure success. The ideal candidate will leverage their experience executing and successfully completing prior highly optimized multi-disciplinary projects.

WHAT YOULL DO

• Own the autonomy software architecture planning execution perception and debrief using open modular architecture standards (MOSA/WOSA where applicable)
• Drive design of mission planning systems for autonomous aviation operations
• Drive mission execution software that manages vehicle behavior during missions
• Own perception systems that enable the vehicle to sense and interpret its environment
• Develop mission debrief capabilities for post-mission analysis and continuous improvement
• Build and maintain software development infrastructure (CI/CD simulation SITL/HITL)
• Define interfaces between the autonomy stack and vehicle management system in accordance with Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) principles
• Manage autonomy deliverables across development phases including MBSE artifacts (e.g. SysML models requirements traceability) as required by program systems engineering
• practices
• Provide technical mentorship to software and systems engineers
• Drive development of test and simulation fixtures for autonomy validation
• Represent the autonomy subsystem in technical and customer meetings
• Interface with Mission Systems Lead and Vehicle Systems on integration
• Travel up to 25% to test sites and customer locations

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelors Masters or PhD degree in Computer Science Robotics Aerospace Engineering or equivalent
• 8 years of experience in autonomous systems robotics or AI/ML
• Experience delivering software through full product development cycles
• Demonstrated experience with autonomous navigation planning or perception systems
• Experience with modeling simulation and SITL/HITL testing
• Experience developing safety-critical or high-assurance software
• Proficiency in C and/or Python for real-time and mission-critical software systems
• Experience with Linux-based embedded or real-time operating systems
• Experience with version control and CI/CD tooling (e.g. Git Jenkins GitLab CI)
• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with autonomous aviation systems (UAS UAV or manned-unmanned teaming)
• Working knowledge of behavior trees or mission planning frameworks
• Experience with computer vision EO/IR sensor processing or airborne perception
• Familiarity with distributed software architectures and edge computing
• Experience designing to open systems architecture standards (MOSA/WOSA) for defense acquisition programs
• Familiarity with MBSE tooling and digital engineering practices (SysML Cameo Jama or similar)
• Familiarity with containerization and deployment tooling (Docker Kubernetes) for edge/embedded deployment
• Experience with simulation environments relevant to aviation/flight dynamics (e.g. Gazebo JSBSim X-Plane or custom digital-twin sims)
• Experience with real-time middleware/pub-sub frameworks (DDS ZeroMQ or similar) for distributed autonomy systems
• Familiarity with cross-compilation and toolchains for embedded/resource-constrained compute (e.g. NVIDIA Jetson or other SWaP-optimized edge hardware)
• Experience with static analysis formal verification or certification-adjacent tooling (e.g. MISRA C DO-178C-adjacent practices

US Salary Range

$220000 - $292000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience education and/or training critical skills and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Andurils total compensation package. Additionally Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees including:

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At Anduril we invest in our people. Our comprehensive competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures youre supported in health recovery and whatever comes next. For more information Explore Our Benefits.

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