Chief Engineer, Autonomous Flight

About the Job 

The Air Dominance & Strike team at Anduril develops aerial and multi-domain robotic systems. The team is responsible for taking products like Fury (unmanned fighter jet) and Barracuda (air-breathing cruise missile) from concept to product. The team also develops Lattice for Mission Autonomy, Anduril’s premier software platform that enables masses of Fury, Barracuda, and other first and third-party robots to collaborate across various missions. We work in close coordination with specialist teams like Perception, Motion Planning, Hardware, and Test Engineering to solve some of the hardest problems facing our customers. 

As a Chief Engineer, you will own the technical architecture and system-level design of the onboard autonomy stack, command and control systems, and modular payloads for our next-generation autonomous platforms. With a software heavy focus, you will guide lean, multi-disciplinary engineering teams from "0-to-1" design through deployment, bridging the gap between high-level business strategy and rigorous engineering execution. 

What You'll Do: 

• Lead systems engineering, requirements decomposition, and technical architecture for software-heavy robotics systems. 

• Guide small, fast-moving groups of individual contributors through the design, implementation, and deployment phases of emerging programs.  

• Oversee hardware/software integration and testing (simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and field testing) to ensure perception, motion planning, and task allocation algorithms run seamlessly on physical platforms.  

• Partner with Product Managers and Business Development to convert customer mission needs and operational concepts into concrete technical milestones.  

• Decide technical trade-offs across concurrent programs, helping teams prioritize engineering efforts. 

Required Qualifications: 

• Proven track record directing technical architecture and guiding individual contributors as a lead engineer 

• Background in developing and fielding software-heavy robotics, autonomous systems, or aerospace products. 

• Strong hardware/software integration skills, including robotics software architectures and tactical mission systems. 

• Experience with autonomous systems, mission-critical Department of Defense systems, or tactical edge technologies. 

• Travel: Ability to travel up to 25% to customer sites and field testing locations. 

• Education: BS, MS, or PhD in Robotics, Aerospace, ME, EE, CS, or equivalent. 

• Security Clearance: Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret clearan 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Advanced knowledge in Motion Planning, Perception, Command & Control, SLAM, task allocation, or tactical networking. 

• Work history involving multi-domain unmanned systems (air, ground, or maritime). 

• Understanding of edge-AI/ML deployment on autonomous physical systems.