Staff Autonomy Software Engineer

Joby Aviation•Santa Cruz, CA

About The Position

Joby Flight Research designs, develops, and flight-tests novel aircraft using a software-first autonomy approach. We build and deploy autonomy, perception, planning, and radar systems across conventional, electric, and hydrogen-electric aircraft in both CTOL and VTOL configurations. Joby Flight Research is seeking an Autonomy Staff Software Engineer, to design and build the AI software for our Superpilot™ autonomy stack. This position offers a unique opportunity to architect the software platform and algorithmic solutions that power Joby’s varied fleet of autonomous aircraft. In this role, you will own, design, and develop the software solutions for aircraft autonomy. You will work closely with other software engineers and AI experts in computer vision, machine learning, and robotics. The role requires deep software engineering and autonomous systems industry experience and expertise. You will design and develop robust perception software for autonomous flight. Further, you will also design and build software systems for data collection, calibration, and testing. Your work will help teams develop AI algorithms and validate safety-critical behavior to deploy autonomous flight on multiple types of aircraft. We are a small, high-impact team that values curiosity, technical initiative, and the ability to operate independently. You will collaborate deeply with sensing, controls, and flight software engineers to build a foundation that accelerates our path to safe, autonomous flight. The right candidate is a strong autonomy software engineer who cares deeply about system design, software engineering, and enabling fast, safe iteration across multiple aircraft programs.

Requirements

Degree in computer science, aerospace engineering, or related field
10+ years of experience in software engineering
Experience in developing software and systems for autonomous vehicles
Experience in real-time, embedded software development
Strong proficiency in C++ and python
Experience in devops such as git, docker, CI/CD, automation
Experience developing SW for high-bandwidth sensor data for robotics platforms, e.g., cameras and lidars
Ability to invent and own technical solutions in autonomy software
Proven ability to document complex technical designs, architectural trade-offs, and implementation roadmaps
Champion of software best practices, including rigorous code reviews and mentorship
Excellent communication skills for collaborating with cross-functional teams
Must meet US export control compliance requirements, therefore a candidate must qualify as a “US Person” as defined by 22 C.F.R. § 120.15. “US Person” includes US Citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugees, or asylees.

Nice To Haves

Software development experience in aerospace autonomy
Expertise in processing aircraft data (GPS, inertial, ADS-B, air data, radio data)
Expertise in ROS2 or related middleware and DDS systems
Experience in RTOS, edge/embedded computed, and data collection and processing
Expert-level software engineering: deep expertise in architecting and writing clean, scalable, and maintainable code
Experience with aircraft autonomy SIL/HIL, hardware, electronics

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and maintain autonomy software across the stack spanning low-level embedded and higher-level autonomous aircraft
Design, implement, and maintain computer vision, machine learning, and AI algorithms for perception and reasoning in autonomous aircraft
Contribute to software engineering work in integration, flight test, and simulation work across autonomy teams
Design and target software systems for real-time, edge compute platforms
Optimize and tune AI perception algorithms for autonomous aircraft
Design and implement efficient solutions for SW deployment, testing, and iteration
Design robust software systems for autonomous aircraft data collection and processing
Evaluate and design advanced sensing and compute solutions for autonomous aircraft involving cameras, lidars, radars and other sensors and compute hardware
Collaborate closely with the rest of the Superpilot™ team to ideate, plan and execute on high-quality, well-integrated solutions and features
Monitor system health and performance, proactively addressing issues and providing user support