About the role
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.