Maritime Autonomy Lead

Location: Ottawa, Canada; on-site. Candidates must be based in Ottawa or ready to relocate to Canada.

Company

hirify.global builds autonomous defense systems for the Canadian Armed Forces and allied operators, including systems deployed in the field.

What you will do

• Set the maritime autonomy roadmap and convert capabilities into sequenced technical plans and milestones.
• Build perception and navigation for surface and subsurface vessels using radar, EO/IR, and acoustic sensing in cluttered maritime conditions.
• Design mission autonomy for long-endurance, bandwidth-constrained, and disconnected operations.
• Develop safe, legible navigation with collision avoidance and COLREGS-consistent behavior.
• Integrate maritime autonomy with AuraNet for tasking, telemetry, mesh networking, and disconnected operation.
• Lead the maritime autonomy team through hiring, technical direction, sea trials, integration, and operator feedback.

Requirements

• Senior engineering leadership experience delivering maritime autonomy in real sea states, including USVs, UUVs, or autonomous vessels.
• Strong expertise in GNSS-denied navigation and localization, perception in sea clutter, collision avoidance, COLREGS, and mission autonomy under acoustic or satcom bandwidth limits.
• Experience hiring, structuring, and leading engineering teams against an accountable technical roadmap.
• Command of deterministic and probabilistic policies, with sound judgment about their use in different mission conditions.
• Experience taking autonomy from prototype to fielded system through test campaigns, failure analysis, and evidence-based validation.
• Based in Ottawa or willing to relocate; this is an on-site role.

Nice to have

• Arctic or cold-water operations experience.
• Naval or coast guard programs, including MDA, ASW, mine countermeasures, or maritime ISR.
• Multi-vehicle collaborative tasking across vessels or vessels and aircraft.
• Simulation-in-the-loop, sim-to-real, ROS 2, or edge computing on constrained marine hardware.
• Certification or safety-case experience for uncrewed vessels, including Transport Canada, class societies, or IMO MASS.

Culture & Benefits

• Work directly with operators in a high-trust environment with short feedback loops and rapid iteration.
• Build defense capability for the Canadian Armed Forces and allied operators.
• Receive competitive base salary and company equity.
• Access comprehensive health benefits and additional equity based on impact.
• AI tools support parts of the hiring process, while final decisions are made by people in accordance with Canadian privacy and employment laws.