Vehicle Autonomy Lead

HavocAI

2d • $175,000 - $200,000 • Remote

About The Position

Havoc is seeking a Vehicle Autonomy Team Lead to spearhead the development, integration, and deployment of the on-vehicle autonomy stack for their autonomous surface vessels. This senior technical leadership role requires deep expertise in robotics, autonomy software, motion planning, controls, vehicle behavior, and real-world system integration. The lead will guide a team of engineers, set priorities, influence architecture, mentor teammates, and ensure the delivery of robust and reliable autonomy capabilities. The position is hands-on and field-oriented, involving system design, code review, debugging, performance evaluation, field test support, and cross-functional collaboration with various engineering and operations teams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of experience in robotics, autonomy, autonomous vehicles, unmanned systems, maritime autonomy, aerospace, defense technology, or related technical fields.
• Strong technical background in vehicle autonomy, motion planning, controls, robotics software, and autonomous system integration.
• Proven experience leading engineers from a technical perspective, either as a team lead, technical lead, staff engineer, principal engineer, or engineering manager.
• Experience building and deploying autonomy software on real robotic or autonomous systems.
• Strong understanding of autonomy software stacks, including planning, control, behaviors, state estimation, sensor integration, simulation, testing, and deployment.
• Experience working in Linux-based development environments with modern software engineering practices.
• Strong programming skills in C++ and/or Python.
• Ability to make sound technical tradeoffs across reliability, safety, performance, maintainability, and schedule.
• Strong debugging skills across software, hardware, sensors, logs, telemetry, and field operations.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to align technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• High ownership, strong judgment, and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Passion for mission-critical autonomy and real-world robotic systems.
• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with autonomous surface vessels, maritime autonomy, naval systems, unmanned boats, or maritime domain awareness.
• Experience with collision avoidance, COLREGs-aware planning, path planning, trajectory generation, behavior planning, guidance, navigation, or control systems.
• Experience with multi-agent autonomy, collaborative autonomy, distributed robotic systems, or coordinated vehicle behaviors.
• Experience with ROS2, DDS, MOOS-IvP, autonomy middleware, or distributed robotics architectures.
• Experience integrating perception, radar, EO/IR cameras, AIS, GPS/INS, or other maritime sensor modalities into autonomy systems.
• Experience with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, autonomy verification and validation, and field test programs.
• Experience supporting government, DoD, defense, or dual-use technology programs.
• Experience operating in startup or fast-moving product engineering environments.
• Active or prior security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical execution of the on-vehicle autonomy team.
• Own autonomy capabilities that run onboard autonomous surface vessels, including navigation, planning, control, behaviors, safety logic, and autonomy execution.
• Define technical priorities, architecture, interfaces, and development standards for vehicle autonomy systems.
• Guide autonomy design decisions across reliability, latency, safety, compute constraints, mission performance, and field maintainability.
• Ensure the vehicle autonomy stack is robust, observable, testable, and ready for real-world maritime operations.
• Lead, mentor, and support a team of autonomy, robotics, planning, and controls engineers.
• Provide technical guidance through design reviews, architecture reviews, code reviews, test planning, and field-readiness reviews.
• Help engineers break down complex autonomy problems into executable technical work.
• Establish strong engineering practices for autonomy development, integration, simulation, testing, and deployment.
• Create a team culture built on ownership, technical excellence, mission focus, and fast iteration.
• Drive autonomy capabilities from concept through implementation, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, field testing, and deployment.
• Support vessel integration, field tests, customer demonstrations, and operational evaluations.
• Diagnose and resolve autonomy issues using logs, telemetry, vehicle data, simulation results, and field observations.
• Build feedback loops between field failures, autonomy improvements, and product roadmap decisions.
• Ensure the team delivers autonomy software that can be operated, debugged, and maintained in real mission environments.
• Work closely with perception, mission software, embedded systems, hardware, product, program, and field operations teams.
• Translate mission needs and product requirements into vehicle autonomy capabilities.
• Coordinate interfaces between onboard autonomy, mission planning, command and control, sensors, and platform systems.
• Communicate technical risks, tradeoffs, and progress clearly to engineering and company leadership.
• Help align vehicle autonomy development with customer needs, deployment timelines, and long-term product strategy.

Benefits

• 100% Employer paid Health, Dental and Vision Insurance for you and your families
• Life Insurance (Employer Paid)
• Ability to participate in the companies 401k program (Matching)
• Unlimited PTO policy with an enforced 2 week minimum
• Equity Package
• Work / Home Office Stipend
• Global Entry
• 16 Week Paid Parental Leave
• Monthly Health and Wellness Stipend

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior