Drive the technical direction and deliver autonomous decision making, behavior execution, and motion planning capabilities for airborne systems.
Define the research, experiments, and development projects that support delivering mission autonomy capabilities.
Identify gaps and define staffing needs to develop and deliver decision making and behavior capabilities.
Ensure the decision making, behaviors, and motion planning technical plans align with short term R&D objectives, long term objectives, and the Merlin technology roadmap.
Lead architecture design and perform architecture and technology trade-off analysis, accounting for short term objectives and long term goals in decision making.
Step in to a hands-on software development role as needed.
Support simulation, integration, and flight test activities to validate real-world performance.
Collaborate across Merlin to develop novel systems to solve the toughest problems in aviation and autonomy.

Degree in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics Engineering, or a related subject.
Years of professional experience developing software for airborne autonomous systems.
Subject matter expert in one or more of the following:
Mission management frameworks such as behavior trees, hierarchical task networks, state machines, petri nets.
Single
and multi-vehicle autonomy, resource allocation, and decision making algorithms.
Airborne contingency and emergency management.
Machine learning for complex decision making and behavior generation.
Years of experience providing tech leadership to a team of at least 4 engineers at different levels.
Proficiency in modern software development workflows and practices, including version control, pipelines, and unit testing, and peer review.
Experience with overall product development cycle, including design, testing, and troubleshooting at the system level as well as at the software component level.
Proficiency writing both Python and C++.
Familiarity with simulation software, especially aircraft simulation.
Experience with proposal writing and technical roadmap development.

Mission Autonomy – Planning and Behaviors Manager

Key skills