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Salary: USD 160,000 - 205,000 / annual
Matternet is building autonomous drone networks for delivery of critical goods across healthcare, logistics, food, and retail. The company operates Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) missions in both open airspace and dense urban environments.
As an Autonomy Engineer, you will develop the onboard decision-making systems that enable safe and reliable autonomous flight operations. Your responsibilities span the full autonomy stack: designing mission sequencing, flight deconfliction, and contingency management; developing path planning and trajectory generation that respect airspace constraints, obstacles, and vehicle dynamics; implementing fault detection and safe contingency responses; and integrating autonomy with perception and the onboard flight software stack.
You will validate behaviors through simulation and flight testing, analyze flight logs to refine autonomy algorithms, and drive releases to production fleets. You'll support field triage of autonomy issues and collaborate across Engineering, Operations, Flight Test, and Safety teams to define and refine aircraft behaviors.
This is a hands-on role that bridges algorithm development, real-time systems, and safety-critical operations. You'll own key aircraft behaviors end-to-end and directly shape how the fleet makes decisions in flight.
**Requirements:**
- BS or MS in Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
- 3+ years developing autonomy, planning, or decision-making software for robots, drones, or autonomous vehicles
- Strong proficiency in C++ (C++11 and later) and Python, including multithreading and real-time messaging
- Strong Linux background
- Experience with state machines, behavior trees, or similar decision-making frameworks
- Solid foundation in path planning and applied math (geometry, coordinate transforms, kinematics) for navigation and avoidance
- Experience validating software in simulation and on real hardware
- Proficiency with version control and peer code review workflows (e.g., Git)
- Clear technical communication and strong cross-disciplinary teamwork
**Preferred Qualifications:**
- Familiarity with autopilot stacks such as ArduPilot or PX4
- UAV, aerospace, or safety-critical regulated product experience
- Experience with collision avoidance and deconfliction with crewed and uncrewed air traffic
- Experience with ROS/ROS2 and simulation environments such as Gazebo
- Experience with distributed systems or networking
- Experience with Docker and containerized build, test, and deployment
- Experience using AI coding assistants to accelerate development
