Founding Aerial Robotics Engineer

Pluton Resource Intelligence is building an autonomous exploration platform designed to accelerate the discovery of critical mineral deposits. The Founding Aerial Robotics Engineer will design and deploy aerial systems for autonomous mineral exploration, integrating advanced sensing technologies and developing autonomy systems for drone operations.

Responsibilities:

• Design and deploy Pluton’s aerial exploration platform
• Selecting and modifying drone hardware platforms
• Optimizing flight endurance and mission range
• Integrating compute and sensing payloads
• Ensuring reliability in rugged terrain environments
• Define the core aerial system architecture used for exploration missions
• Develop autonomous mission capabilities enabling aerial systems to plan and execute exploration missions across large terrain regions
• Navigate to exploration targets generated by Pluton’s exploration engine (NOUS)
• Collect structured sensing datasets for geological modeling
• Dynamically adapt mission paths based on terrain and sensing feedback
• Integrate airborne sensing technologies used in mineral exploration, including hyperspectral imaging, LiDAR terrain mapping, RGB / photogrammetry systems, multispectral sensing, geospatial and geophysical payloads
• Develop simulation environments to validate aerial missions prior to field deployment, including mission simulation, flight path testing, sensor modeling, autonomy validation, and hardware-in-the-loop testing
• Lead real-world testing and deployment of aerial systems, including flight testing, mission planning, system validation, and iterative improvement of autonomy systems
• Work closely with a multidisciplinary team including Ground Robotics Engineers, Simulation Engineers, Remote Sensing Specialists, and Geological Advisors

Requirements:

• experience in robotics engineering
• experience in aerospace engineering
• experience in autonomous systems
• experience in drone hardware development
• PX4 or ArduPilot
• ROS / ROS2
• autonomy stacks
• aerial sensing or mapping systems
• sensor integration
• robotics simulation environments
• Candidates may come from backgrounds such as autonomy startups
• defense robotics companies
• aerial mapping platforms
• robotics research labs