Principal Autonomy Software Engineer
CHAOS Industries17 hours ago
Base Salary
$240k - $310k/yr
Responsibilities
- Own autonomy software architecture covering multi-sensor fusion, world modeling, mission planning, task allocation, and real-time decision-making across distributed nodes.
- Define autonomy technical strategy and roadmap while driving alignment on complex cross-team trade-offs.
- Build and productionize autonomy software for resource-constrained edge hardware deployed in the field.
- Set engineering standards for code quality, testing, simulation, and safe, predictable autonomous behavior.
- Technically lead and mentor engineers through design reviews, pairing, and hands-on collaboration.
- Translate warfighter and operator needs into robust, testable autonomy requirements.
- Establish simulation, testing, and evaluation pipelines for validating autonomous behavior before field deployment.
- Collaborate with hardware, RF/signals, systems, and product teams and travel as needed to test sites, demonstrations, and other offices.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
- Deep hands-on experience designing and shipping autonomy or robotics software involving perception, state estimation, planning, control, or multi-agent systems on real fielded hardware.
- Expert proficiency in C++, Rust, and Python, with strong software design skills for real-time, safety-critical, or resource-constrained systems.
- Experience owning complex systems from concept through production deployment and architectural accountability.
- Strong mathematics foundation in probabilistic estimation, sensor fusion, optimization, and/or planning algorithms.
- Hands-on experience with robotics or autonomy frameworks and tooling such as ROS, ROS2, real-time middleware, and simulation environments.
- Experience working with real-world EO/IR, RADAR, RF, LiDAR, and GPS/INS sensor data.
- Proven technical leadership, mentoring, cross-functional collaboration, and cross-team decision-making without formal authority.
- U.S. person status, defined as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
- Preferred: Master’s or PhD in a relevant technical field.
- Preferred: Experience in defense, aerospace, or other mission-critical domains with high reliability requirements.
- Preferred: Experience with multi-agent coordination, swarming, or distributed autonomy.
- Preferred: Experience deploying ML or autonomy stacks to embedded, GPU-accelerated, or edge-compute hardware.
- Preferred: Active U.S. security clearance.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits are 100% paid by the company.
- 401(k) with a 50% company match up to 6% of pay, plus FSA, HSA, life insurance, and other benefits.
- Free daily lunch, no-meeting Fridays, unlimited PTO, and a casual dress code.
- Pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and annual bonuses planned for the future.
- Primarily office and lab based, with travel as needed to test sites, field demonstrations, and other CHAOS offices.
About CHAOS Industries
CHAOS Industries builds networked sensing, communications, and real-time software systems for defense, government security, commercial aviation, and critical infrastructure operators. It sells integrated hardware–software platforms and related services to government and industrial customers. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the privately held company also maintains offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London, and its products are designed for fielded, time-critical operations.