Simulation & Automation Team Lead (Robotics)

Location: Petah Tikva, Kyriat Arye, Israel

Company

hirify.global develops and manufactures autonomous drone systems combining hardware, software, and AI-driven technologies for complex operations, primarily supporting defense, military, and law-enforcement customers worldwide.

What you will do

• Lead, mentor, and grow the simulation and automation engineering team.
• Define the company-wide test strategy across unit testing, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and real-flight validation.
• Own software-in-the-loop flight-controller simulation, high-fidelity 3D environments, and integration with backend, ground-control, and onboard software.
• Design hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure using real onboard computers, flight controllers, and sensors.
• Own backend, UI, onboard, and end-to-end automation frameworks, including mission execution, degraded links, and failure injection.
• Integrate validation into CI/CD, define release and vehicle quality gates, build testing tools, and report on coverage, pass rates, escaped defects, and pipeline stability.

Requirements

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience in simulation, test automation, or both.
• 2+ years of experience leading engineers as a team lead or tech lead.
• Strong programming skills in Python and C++.
• Proven experience building test automation frameworks from scratch and running them in CI.
• Hands-on experience with simulation environments, game engines, or physics-based systems.
• Experience with CI/CD systems such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or similar, plus Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, real-time systems, and system architecture.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to define and defend a test strategy across teams.

Nice to have

• Experience with NVIDIA Isaac Sim, Gazebo, AirSim, Unreal Engine, or Unity.
• Experience with PX4 or ArduPilot SITL and MAVLink.
• Experience with ROS 2 or DDS.
• Experience designing or operating hardware-in-the-loop rigs.
• Experience with UI automation tools such as Playwright.
• Experience modeling sensors, physics, or environments, including camera, lidar, GNSS, or IMU models.
• Experience with robotics, drones, or autonomous systems, ideally in a safety- or mission-critical context.

Culture & Benefits

• Hands-on leadership role combining team leadership, coding, simulation, and test automation.
• Own both the virtual validation environment and the tests that run in it.
• Define the simulation and testing strategy for the company as the first lead of this function.
• Direct impact on the safety and reliability of autonomous aerial operations.