Autonomy Engineer Intern (Simulation & Robotics)

Location: Zurich, Switzerland; onsite internship

Compensation: $47/hour for undergraduate students, $53/hour for master's students, and $70/hour for PhD students.

Company

hirify.global is a US drone company developing autonomous flight technology through artificial intelligence, hardware, software, and computer vision.

What you will do

• Design, implement, and evolve the core architecture of the hirify.global Simulator across vehicle types, environments, and use cases.
• Improve physics and dynamics models for vehicle motion, environmental interactions, and dynamic agents.
• Build high-fidelity simulations of cameras, IMUs, and other onboard components, including timing, noise, and hardware behavior.
• Integrate and validate the full autonomy stack in simulation to maintain consistency with real-world behavior.
• Develop simulator features for training scenarios, advanced testing modes, and workflows used by customers and autonomy engineers.
• Profile and optimize simulator performance while improving realism and accuracy; collaborate with autonomy, perception, and controls engineers and contribute to documentation.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering experience with C++ and Python.
• Experience building complex systems where performance, determinism, or correctness matter.
• Comfort reasoning about time-synchronized systems, state machines, or real-time execution.
• Ability to work in a large, evolving codebase with multiple stakeholders.
• Strong foundations in mathematics, theory, and software development, with an interest in contributing to autonomy algorithms and production products.

Nice to have

• Experience or interest in robotics, simulation, game engines, or real-time systems.
• Experience with physics engines, sensor modeling, or hardware abstraction layers.
• Experience with multithreaded or low-latency system design.
• Experience debugging systems spanning software and physical behavior.

Culture & Benefits

• Work in a multidisciplinary environment that values diverse perspectives and complex problem solving.
• Full-time employees may enroll in benefit plans and access incentives and stipends.
• hirify.global is committed to an inclusive culture and equal employment consideration.