Autonomy Engineer (Robotics)

Location: Bristol, Rhode Island, United States; onsite field work and sea trials required

Company

hirify.global develops autonomous underwater vehicles and the software that enables reliable real-world operation.

What you will do

• Develop motion planning, path planning, behavior planning, and control systems for autonomous underwater vehicles.
• Build capabilities for navigation, collision avoidance, target following, station keeping, formation behavior, and multi-vehicle coordination.
• Improve autonomy robustness under degraded sensor conditions, uncertain environments, dynamic contacts, and GNSS-denied operation.
• Balance performance, safety, reliability, latency, compute constraints, and mission requirements.
• Collaborate with perception and sensor engineers to convert perception outputs into safe autonomy decisions.
• Mature prototypes into reliable fielded behavior and support testing and deployment on the water.

Requirements

• 3+ years of production software development in C++, Python, or Rust in a Linux environment.
• Strong foundation in computer science, software engineering, robotics, mathematics, physics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Experience building robust data-driven software and working in complex established codebases.
• Demonstrated results in simulation and field testing.
• Must be a U.S. citizen and able to receive a Security Clearance.

Nice to have

• Experience with maritime sensors, underwater acoustics, or subsea systems.
• ROS 2 or comparable robotics middleware experience.
• Estimation and sensor fusion, including INS/DVL and Kalman filtering.
• Master’s or Ph.D. in a relevant technical field.
• Startup or defense industry experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Own autonomy features end to end, from initial design through sea trials.
• See software deployed on vehicles in the water within weeks rather than quarters.
• Work directly with perception and sensor engineering specialists.
• Participate in hands-on testing and deployment activities on the water.
• Equal opportunity workplace welcoming candidates from all backgrounds.