Senior Payloads Software Engineer
About The Position
Forterra is seeking a senior software engineer with a passion for autonomous systems. In this role, you will design, develop, and field software solutions that enable intelligent behavior in robotics and automation technologies. You will directly support real-world missions across our fleet of ground vehicles operated by our national security customers around the world. The ideal candidate has a strong software development background, familiarity with robotics and autonomous systems, and proven track record of collaborating with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and product managers to create robust and scalable software for complex systems.
Requirements
- 3 or more years of relevant experience
- B.S. in computer science, engineering, robotics, or related field or relevant experience/show of skill
- Experience in integrating software on hardware systems, including sensors, effectors, and compute platforms
- Strong programming skills in languages in C/C++ (preferred)
- Experience vehicle networks and diagnostics (CAN, CAN-FD, Ethernet, FlexRay, UDS/J1939) and to logging/trace tools
- Solid core software engineering skills: software design, unit testing, debugging
- Ability to consistently deliver production-quality software in a continuously integrated environment
- Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, and software design principles
- Demonstrates clean, maintainable code and documentation practices
- Experience working in teams and a willingness to proactively solve problems
Nice To Haves
- Experience in software development for robotics and autonomous systems
- Experience working with open architectures (e.g., IOP, MOSA, SOSA, FACE, or similar)
- Experience with safety-critical systems (e.g., MIL-STD-882, ISO-26262, DO-178)
- Experience programming in languages in Python and Java
- Experience with ROS2
- Experience with state machines and motion / path planning
- Experience with issue tracking (JIRA)
- Knowledge of navigation, mapping algorithms and robot perception
- Familiarity with real-time operating systems and embedded programming
- Leadership experience on cross-functional software teams
Responsibilities
- Integrate and deploy paylaods on customer-bound hardware platforms and validate it in real-world conditions.
- Work across the organization and directly with end-users to deliver new behaviors, payload integrations, and emerging mission use-cases.
- Take a holistic view of autonomous vehicle behavior—how sensing, compute, controls, and other subsystems interact—and drive overall performance improvements.
- Analyze test results, identify issues and root causes, and collaborate with engineering teams to drive problems to resolution.
- Partner across business development and engineering teams to translate customer requirements into delivered autonomy capabilities.
Benefits
- Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
- Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
- Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
- Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
- A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
- A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
- Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
- 401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
Associate degree
