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Dominion Dynamics is building autonomous systems for the Canadian Armed Forces across air, ground, and maritime domains on a sovereign Canadian technology stack. As Director of Autonomy, you will set the technical direction and strategy for autonomy across all three domains, owning the autonomy roadmap end-to-end and defining how it integrates with AuraNet (the command-and-control, mesh, and tasking layer). You will establish autonomy as a core capability inherited by every Dominion product rather than a platform-specific add-on.
Key responsibilities include: developing autonomy strategy and sequenced technical roadmaps with real milestones; defining integration patterns with AuraNet for disconnected and bandwidth-constrained operations; building unified autonomy architecture across uncrewed air, ground, and maritime systems; making technical decisions on deterministic vs. probabilistic policies and setting standards for training, evaluation, and trust; growing and leading the autonomy engineering team from a cross-functional effort into a standalone department; and working directly with hardware, software, simulation, and field teams on trials, integration, and operator feedback.
You must have senior engineering leadership experience with hands-on deployment of autonomous systems in real-world environments (not simulation or research only). Critical requirement: proven autonomy experience across all three domains—robotics, aerospace, and marine. You should have a track record scaling autonomy capability and teams from small groups to full functions with independent roadmaps and headcount. Strong command of reinforcement learning, autonomy policies, policy evaluation, safety bounding, and fielded system deployment is essential. You need hands-on experience with both deterministic policies (rule-based) and probabilistic policies (decision-making under uncertainty) with clear judgment on which approach fits the mission.
Nice-to-have skills include mission autonomy and multi-agent collaborative tasking, ROS 2 and edge compute on constrained hardware, simulation-in-the-loop and sim-to-real validation, exposure to defence programs and interoperability standards, and experience with systems in harsh or Arctic conditions. The role is based in Ottawa, on-site with the team and close to the customer. Reports directly to the Founder & CEO. Full-time, with competitive base salary, company equity, comprehensive health benefits, and additional equity based on impact.
