Manager of Engineering - Autonomous Pilot Integration - Expeditionary (R5175)

Location: On-site in the United States, Dallas, Texas, or Washington, DC. Travel to test sites, customer exercises, operator training, deployment events, and integration events is typically 20–30% of the year.

Company

hirify.global develops autonomy solutions for unmanned aircraft and defense customers, including the V-BAT and X-BAT platforms.

What you will do

• Lead a 5–10-person autonomy engineering team, owning delivery, performance, growth, leveling, and team rituals.
• Hire, interview, onboard, and mentor engineers while setting technical direction and creating development opportunities.
• Develop, integrate, validate, and field autonomy software for V-BAT and X-BAT, including mission behaviors, VTOL control modes, multi-agent coordination, payloads, sensors, and flight-autonomy interfaces.
• Partner closely with aircraft, Autonomy Capabilities, Perception, GCS, Strategic Systems, feature crews, operators, and customer/program offices.
• Own design reviews, interface control documents, release planning, mission readiness, hardware/software compatibility, and post-mortems.
• Support live flight tests, range exercises, customer demonstrations, operator training, troubleshooting, mission-data analysis, and performance optimization.

Requirements

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 7+ years of related experience with a bachelor's degree, 5+ years with a master's degree, or 4+ years with a PhD.
• 2+ years of direct people-management experience, including 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring, and growth planning.
• Experience with Group 3 unmanned aircraft, VTOL platforms, or comparable medium-sized unmanned systems; multi-agent autonomy; and live operational test events.
• Strong C++ proficiency with real-time or latency-sensitive systems, plus Linux, embedded systems, shell scripting, system diagnostics, middleware, pub-sub, or IPC frameworks.
• Ability to obtain a SECRET clearance.

Nice to have

• Experience with custom autopilot stacks, hybrid-mode aircraft, EO/IR or ViDAR sensors, long-endurance ISR missions, and ARM-based payload computers.
• Python, Docker, CMake, Conan, CI/CD, automation tooling, simulation environments, and hardware-in-the-loop debugging.
• Experience with GCS or mission-planning interfaces, STANAG 4586, UCI, OMS, and open-systems standards.
• Experience supporting international defense programs, fielded military operators, DoD stakeholders, or customer-facing technical relationships.

Culture & Benefits

• Close collaboration across aircraft, autonomy, perception, GCS, customer, and program teams.
• Hands-on engineering leadership with direct contribution to code, integration, testing, and field operations.
• Field-focused work involving long-endurance ISR missions, live exercises, operator workflows, and customer feedback loops.
• Regular travel to offices, customer sites, training events, deployment events, and integration locations.