Staff Autonomy Systems Engineer

Joby Aviation•Santa Cruz, CA

1d•$201,700 - $238,000

About The Position

Joby Advanced Development 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. At Joby, Systems Engineers manage the end-to-end design, integration, and execution of complex aerospace systems. They are responsible for translating mission objectives into technical requirements, ensuring seamless collaboration between hardware and software teams, balancing competing constraints (cost, schedule, and performance), and validating that all parts safely achieve the mission. The Advanced Development team is looking for a passionate Staff Autonomy Systems Engineer to join our growing team. This position provides the engineer a chance to interact with many of the key teams and disciplines across the company. You will provide technical guidance and coordination across the Autonomous Aircraft’s Systems, from early concept development through system-level V&V. The role will be involved in defining high level requirements in alignment with stakeholder objectives, targeted decomposition of requirements in high risk areas, creating technology development roadmaps to increase TRL and reduce operational risk, defining key interfaces between systems, and generating V&V plans and test cases to verify requirements and validate the design. This position requires a solid understanding of aircraft systems, system development, and industry specific standards and processes. This position requires enough background knowledge and a willingness to learn to enable one to understand the complex trade-offs involved in the system design across the aircraft systems as a whole. The most important traits at Joby are a positive attitude towards the project, strong work ethic, and being able to self-manage and learn new skills. Forward thinking and the ability to adapt quickly to a fast-paced environment are a must.

Requirements

BS in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Systems Engineering, or a related field
10+ years of systems engineering experience developing safety-critical vehicles, preferably in aerospace and/or autonomy
Thorough understanding of systems engineering concepts and methods
Excellent interpersonal skills to effectively communicate with colleagues across a wide range of technical disciplines
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment

Nice To Haves

MS/PhD in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Systems Engineering, or a related field
Experience in digital flight control or fly-by-wire systems
Familiarity with key aerospace development standards and guidance, such as ARP4754, DO-178C, DO-254, DO-160G, NPR 7123.1, and the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook
Experience with MBSE and requirements management tools (e.g., Flow, Jama, Polarion, Cameo/MagicDraw)
Clean-sheet aerospace development

Responsibilities

Derive, allocate, and track technical requirements from top-level mission goals down to individual subsystems.
Develop interface control documents (ICDs).
Define and analyze the overall system layout, develop ConOps and evaluate their feasibility, and conduct trade studies to influence performance.
Ensure all systems being developed are coordinated and balanced to function as a cohesive whole.
Execute the V&V strategy across all systems, define and execute test plans, identify specific test cases, and collect verification data to satisfy the requirements.
Identify technical risks, develop mitigation strategies, and execute plans to buy down target risks.
Lead technical trade studies and functional analyses, define milestone success criteria, and support technical design reviews.
Guide and mentor junior engineers.