Senior Staff Software Engineer, Autonomous Pilot Integration – Weapons (R5398)

Technical Strategy & Portfolio Leadership – Define the long-term technical direction for the Launched Effects portfolio; drive common integration patterns, architecture, and engineering strategy that enable scalable fleet operations across current and future programs. 

Develop & Field Autonomy – Guide the development and integration of mission autonomy, platform interfaces, executive autonomy, multi-agent coordination, and fleet-scale deployment capabilities while ensuring successful operational delivery across launched effects programs. 

Collaboration Across Teams & Partners – Build strong technical partnerships across the Autonomy Capabilities team, Perception team, feature crews, autopilot vendors, C2 providers, customer organizations, and engineering leadership; influence architecture and technical direction beyond the portfolio. 

Design & Documentation – Lead cross-functional architecture reviews, interface standards, ICDs, and post-mortems while raising engineering rigor and technical consistency across multiple organizations. 

Mentorship & Organizational Growth – Mentor Staff and Senior engineers, develop future technical leaders, contribute to engineering standards and leveling, and partner with managers on senior hiring. 

Pre-deployment Preparation – Guide Capability Release planning, fleet-scale deployment strategies, mission validation, and operational readiness across multiple programs. 

On-site Test & Mission Support – Provide senior technical leadership during critical flight tests, customer demonstrations, and operational exercises where deep systems integration expertise is required. 

Hardware/Software Debugging – Lead resolution of the organization's most complex autonomy integration challenges spanning software, embedded systems, networking, platform interfaces, and operational environments. 

Mission Data & Debrief Support – Drive post-mission analysis, identify systemic improvements, and influence long-term technical investments based on operational learnings. 

Continuous Improvement – Drive organization-wide improvements to engineering processes, testing infrastructure, integration workflows, developer experience, and mission reliability. 

C2 Interoperability & Standards – Define technical strategy for command-and-control interoperability; shape interface evolution with internal and external stakeholders while driving adoption of common message and open-systems standards (e.g., UCI, OMS, MOSA, WOSA, TAK/CoT). 

Hiring & Developing Technical Talent – Define the technical hiring bar for senior engineering roles, partner with engineering managers on long-term staffing strategy, and help grow the organization's technical capabilities. 

Travel Requirement – Members of this team typically travel around 10–20% of the year to different office locations, customer sites, operator training events, flight tests, and integration exercises. 

• BS/MS in a relevant engineering discipline or equivalent practical experience.  

• Typically requires 10+ years of relevant experience.  

• Expert-level C++ and Linux systems development experience.  

• Demonstrated experience defining technical strategy across multiple engineering teams or programs.  

• Proven track record influencing architecture and solving highly complex autonomy integration challenges.  

• Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving engineering excellence across an organization.  

• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

• Extensive experience with launched effects, autonomous systems, or distributed robotic platforms.  

• Experience defining autopilot integration strategies and multi-agent autonomy architectures.  

• Experience leading fleet-scale or disconnected operational deployments.  

• Experience with military operational testing and international defense customers.  

• Experience with UCI, OMS, MOSA, WOSA, TAK/CoT, or similar open architectures.  

• Experience shaping engineering practices across multiple teams or organizations.