Software Engineer, Mission Autonomy

- Design, implement, test, and deploy mission-autonomy software using modern C++

- Use Python to develop tooling for analysis, simulation, test automation, and mission evaluation.

- Develop software for mission planning, task sequencing, behavior orchestration, state management, and autonomous mission execution.

- Build decision-making and contingency-management systems that respond appropriately to vehicle health, sensor availability, communications loss, environmental changes, and mission updates.

- Translate concepts of operation, mission objectives, system requirements, and test objectives into well-defined autonomous behaviors and software interfaces.

- Integrate mission software with flight controls, navigation, perception, payloads, communications, ground-control systems, and operator interfaces.

- Design clear and reliable interfaces between high-level mission logic and lower-level vehicle capabilities.

- Develop systems that continue operating effectively when communications, GNSS, sensing, or other resources are degraded or unavailable.

- Support multi-vehicle mission execution, distributed coordination, and collaborative behaviors where applicable.

- Build simulation scenarios, software-in-the-loop tests, hardware-in-the-loop tests, mission replays, and automated regression tests.

- Define mission-level measures of performance and develop evaluation tooling for mission completion, timing, robustness, fault recovery, resource utilization, and operator workload.

- Analyze telemetry, logs, test results, and flight data to identify failures, improve behavior, and drive rapid iteration.

- Work closely with flight software, GNC, perception, systems engineering, ground-control, flight-test, and hardware teams to deliver complete vehicle capabilities.

- Participate in ground and flight testing, including debugging integrated systems in field environments.

- Contribute to software architecture, code reviews, development practices, technical documentation, and continuous integration.

- Strong software-engineering skills in modern C++ and Python.

- Experience developing production software on Linux.

- Experience developing software for autonomous systems, robotics, or aerospace platforms.

- Hands-on experience implementing one or more mission-autonomy capabilities, such as task planning, behavior trees, state machines, hierarchical planning, decision-making, mission execution, or contingency management.

- Strong understanding of software architecture, interfaces, concurrency, data flow, and system-level debugging.

- Ability to write clean, testable, maintainable, and well-documented software.

- Experience taking software from prototype through integration, testing, and deployment on real hardware.

- Ability to diagnose failures using logs, telemetry, simulation results, and observed system behavior.

- Strong technical ownership and the ability to work effectively across multiple engineering disciplines.

- Clear written and verbal communication skills.

- Strong engineering judgment and integrity when balancing mission effectiveness, safety, reliability, latency, resource constraints, and operational simplicity.

- Three or more years of professional experience developing software for autonomous vehicles, UAVs, robotics, aerospace, or defense systems.

- Experience with autonomous aerial vehicles or optionally piloted aircraft.

- Experience designing mission planners, behavior trees, executive systems, task schedulers, or autonomy state machines.

- Experience with multi-agent systems, collaborative autonomy, distributed task allocation, or swarm coordination.

- Familiarity with guidance, navigation, controls, state estimation, perception, or motion planning sufficient to integrate effectively with those systems.

- Experience designing software for intermittent, bandwidth-constrained, degraded, or denied communications environments.

- Experience with fault detection, graceful degradation, abort logic, recovery behaviors, and safety-critical state management.

- Experience deploying software on embedded Linux systems, edge computers, or resource-constrained platforms.

- Experience with simulation, software-in-the-loop testing, hardware-in-the-loop testing, scenario generation, Monte Carlo testing, or automated mission evaluation.

- Experience building ground-control, command-and-control, or human-machine-interface software.

- Experience participating in flight testing, range operations, or field deployment of experimental systems and working through the practical challenges of real-world operations.

- Experience with Rust, particularly for systems programming, embedded software, or safety- and performance-critical applications.

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws and regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Please note that any offer for employment may be conditioned on authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export control laws and regulations without sponsorship for an export license.

Mach participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S.

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offers may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and training, critical skills, and business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in most offers and are considered part of Mach's total compensation package.

Mach offers benefits such as health insurance, retirement plans, and opportunities for professional development.

Mach is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will be treated with respect and receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, uniform service, Veteran status, age, or any other protected characteristic per federal, state, or local law, including those with a criminal history, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws.

If you'd like to defend the American way of life, please reach out!