Autonomy Lead
Skyways is an Austin-based company that develops and operates long-range autonomous aircraft and flight operations for cargo logistics.
Funding history
Investors
About Skyways
Skyways Air Transportation Inc. builds autonomous uncrewed cargo aircraft and associated autonomy and operations capabilities for commercial and national-security logistics. Its V2 aircraft is in production and operating missions; its V3 B2 aircraft is in development.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will lead the autonomy engineering function while remaining hands-on with architecture, implementation, testing, and flight debugging. You will integrate perception, state estimation, planning, and flight behaviors; validate systems through simulation, ground testing, and flight operations; use operational data to improve performance; and resolve real-world autonomy failures.
Requirements
- Experience building and deploying autonomy systems on real robotic or UAV platforms
- Experience leading and developing engineers
- System-level understanding of perception, estimation, and planning
- Experience taking autonomy systems through operational deployment and iteration
- Proficiency in C++ and Python
- Experience debugging autonomy failures using logs, telemetry, and system-level analysis
- Experience working across software, hardware, and flight or field operations
- Experience improving ML or perception systems using real-world operational data
- U.S. citizenship, U.S. permanent residency, or eligibility under applicable export control regulations
Responsibilities
- Own the end-to-end autonomy stack across perception, estimation, planning, and system behavior
- Lead, manage, and grow the autonomy engineering team
- Define system architecture and make reliability, performance, and operational-complexity tradeoffs
- Set technical direction while remaining hands-on in critical technical areas
- Drive integration across autonomy, GNC, mission planning, and aircraft systems
- Validate autonomy through simulation, ground testing, and flight operations
- Use flight data, telemetry, and operational feedback to improve system performance
- Improve datasets, evaluation pipelines, and iteration loops for deployed autonomy systems
- Debug real-world autonomy failures
- Collaborate with flight operations and hardware teams to improve reliability
Benefits
- Stock options
- Medical coverage
- Dental coverage
- Vision coverage
- Paid time off
- Paid holidays
- 401k
- Life insurance
- Relocation assistance for candidates moving to Austin