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Salary: USD 144,500 - 322,742 / annual
Saildrone is a maritime defense company and global leader in autonomous unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). The company operates combat-deployed systems supporting national security and force projection worldwide, with manufacturing and R&D headquarters in Alameda, CA, and deployment hubs in Europe and the Middle East.
As a Software Engineer, Autonomous Systems, you will develop production autonomy software that enables maritime vehicles to perceive, reason about, and respond to the physical world without continuous human intervention. You will work across the full autonomy stack—from algorithm implementation through system integration, testing, and field validation—on systems operating for extended periods in challenging environments far from human operators.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design, implement, and deploy production autonomy software in C++
- Develop and integrate algorithms for perception, localization, planning, navigation, decision-making, and vehicle behavior
- Evaluate algorithmic approaches and make practical tradeoffs among accuracy, robustness, computational cost, latency, and reliability
- Integrate autonomy software with sensors, vehicle systems, and other autonomous system components
- Use simulation, testing, telemetry, and real-world vehicle data to validate behavior and diagnose failures
- Improve robustness and performance of autonomous capabilities as they transition from development to fielded systems
- Contribute to the architecture and evolution of Saildrone's next-generation autonomy stack
Qualifications:
- Strong C++ software engineering skills and experience building production-quality software
- Hands-on experience developing software for autonomous systems, robotics, or other complex physical systems
- Deep technical expertise in at least one autonomy domain: perception, localization, state estimation, planning, navigation, controls, or decision-making
- Strong understanding of algorithms and engineering tradeoffs relevant to autonomous systems
- Experience integrating algorithms into larger software systems and debugging behavior using real-world data
- Ability to reason about system behavior, performance, and reliability rather than treating algorithms as isolated components
- Experience developing and validating software that runs on real hardware
Nice to have: experience with autonomous vehicles, aerospace, defense, maritime systems, or safety/mission-critical applications; real-time or resource-constrained systems; autonomy software through simulation, hardware integration, and field testing; Python for analysis, experimentation, or tooling.
