Autonomy Engineer

We're looking for an Autonomy Engineer to build the software that makes our AUVs capable in the real world. You'll own features end to end — from whiteboard to sea trial — and see your code run on vehicles in the water within weeks, not quarters. If you want tight feedback loops between what you write and what a vehicle does, this is that job.

What You'll Do

• Develop motion planning, path planning, behavior planning, and control systems for autonomous underwater vehicles
• Build autonomy capabilities spanning navigation, collision avoidance, target following, station keeping, formation behavior, and multi-vehicle coordination
• Make autonomy algorithms robust to the conditions that actually break them: degraded sensors, uncertain environments, dynamic contacts, and GNSS-denied operation
• Own technical tradeoffs across performance, safety, reliability, latency, compute constraints, and mission requirements
• Work directly with perception and sensor engineers to turn perception outputs into safe, effective autonomy decisions
• Mature autonomy from prototype capability into reliable, repeatable, fielded behavior — including time on the water supporting test and deployment

What You Bring

• Strong engineering foundation — CS, Software Engineering, Robotics, Mathematics, Physics, or equivalent hands-on experience
• 3+ years writing production C++, Python, or Rust in a Linux environment
• Experience building robust data-driven software
• Ability to get up to speed quickly in complex, established codebases
• Proven results in simulation and field tests

Nice to have

• Maritime sensors, underwater acoustics, or subsea systems
• Advanced degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in a relevant technical field
• ROS 2, or comparable robotics middleware
• Estimation and sensor fusion (INS/DVL, Kalman filtering)
• Prior startup and/or defense industry experience

Candidates must be U.S.Citizens and able to receive a Security Clearance.

Vatn is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome candidates from all backgrounds to apply.