AeroParagon - Robotics Autonomy Engineer

Fabric • Los Angeles, CA

6h • Hybrid

About The Position

AeroParagon is building intelligent counter‑drone systems to protect service members, critical infrastructure, and the public from threats posed by small unmanned aircraft. We combine autonomous aircraft, advanced sensing, and AI‑driven perception to detect, track, and intercept hostile drones in complex environments. Our flagship work includes a soldier‑portable counter‑drone interceptor and a server‑based detection platform that leverages existing security cameras to detect and track drones across large areas, creating an affordable, layered drone‑defense architecture for military and civilian customers.

You will build and harden major parts of the autonomy stack for a high‑speed counter‑drone interceptor, covering VTOL launch, high-speed flight, and accurate targeting. You’ll integrate multi‑sensor inputs into GNC behaviors, define robust logging/telemetry, and prepare vehicles for field use through real-world tuning/debugging.

Requirements

• BS in Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Math, Physics, or Systems Engineering (or equivalent experience).
• 3+ years of professional experience building robotics, autonomy, or flight-control systems with real-world test or field validation.
• Proficiency in Python (tooling, autonomy logic, test harnesses, data/log analysis) and C/C++ (performance-critical or lower-level components).
• Experience with ROS/ROS 2 or other robotics middleware.
• Demonstrated ability to implement and tune closed-loop control behaviors for real vehicles.
• Experience integrating and debugging onboard sensors on Linux or real-time embedded systems (RTOS/MCU).
• Comfortable on Ubuntu/Linux for development + debugging, git version control, and basic robot-to-control networking.
• Low-ego, collaborative mindset; comfortable owning features end-to-end.
• Willing to support occasional lab tests, field tests, and work with real hardware/logs.
• U.S. citizens only. Due to export‑control and federal contract requirements, we are unable to sponsor visas or hire non‑citizens (including green card holders).

Nice To Haves

• 10+ years of professional experience in Software Engineering, Data Science, or applied Machine Learning.
• Experience integrating with PX4 or ArduPilot (MAVLink/MAVSDK/MAVROS or equivalent) and using flight logs for tuning and debugging.
• Experience building and tuning practical estimators for robotics/flight (at minimum KF/EKF) and validating with flight logs/replay.
• Experience making autonomy pipelines robust to real-world timing issues (timestamp discipline, buffering, late/out-of-order data).
• Experience designing/implementing telemetry + structured logging, and using replay tooling (e.g., ROS bag2/MCAP, PX4 ULog, Foxglove, etc).
• Experience implementing/validating GPS‑denied navigation using IMU fusion with optical flow / VO/VIO / SLAM and additional aiding sources (baro/mag/UWB/terrain cues) as needed for deployable performance.
• Experience integrating tracking outputs (e.g., computer vision, radar, or proximity-derived tracks) into guidance/control loops.
• Demonstrated rigor around flight readiness, fault handling, failsafes, and test planning (especially for high-speed flight).
• Experience bridging an Android client or GCS tooling (QGC/QGC‑Gov) into PX4/ROS 2 autonomy stacks.

Responsibilities

• You take responsibility for autonomy modules from design through integration, flight testing, and iteration.
• You profile, test, and measure; reliability, latency, and failure modes matter to you.
• You are comfortable working at the interfaces between perception/tracking, guidance/control, flight stack, telemetry/logging, and ground control.
• You communicate clearly, explain trade‑offs, and keep teammates in the loop during rapid iteration and field testing.
• You’re eager to learn new sensors, guidance methods, and estimation techniques when they make sense, and you can turn ideas into flight-tested code.

Benefits

• Impact: Your algorithms will defend real civilian/military sites and real people from drones.
• Technical challenge: Work at the intersection of robotics autonomy, embedded systems, sensing, and defense, under genuine real‑time and power constraints.
• Team & culture: Join a tight‑knit, low‑ego team of founders and engineers with deep experience shipping complex hardware products, in a culture that values ownership and intellectual honesty.
• Growth & ownership: As an early autonomy hire, you’ll help shape the technical roadmap for flight behaviors, sensing integration, logging/replay workflows, and simulation strategy, and grow into broader leadership as we scale.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees