Engineering Manager Autonomy Planning and Behaviors
Merlin is a Boston-based aerospace and defense technology company developing AI-powered, aircraft-agnostic autonomy software for fixed-wing aircraft.
About Merlin
Merlin’s Merlin Pilot combines hardware and software intended to perform takeoff-to-touchdown flight functions for military and civil aircraft, supporting reduced-crew and autonomous operations. The operating business began as Apollo Flight Research in 2018, became Merlin Labs in 2020, and is now operated under public parent Merlin, Inc.
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 technical direction for autonomous decision-making, behavior execution, and motion-planning capabilities. You will define research and development work, identify staffing needs, lead architecture trade-off analysis, contribute to software development, and support simulation, integration, and flight-test validation.
Requirements
- Computer science, aerospace engineering, robotics engineering, or related degree
- Professional experience developing software for airborne autonomous systems
- Expertise in mission management, vehicle autonomy, resource allocation, decision-making, contingency management, or machine learning
- Technical leadership experience for a team of at least four engineers
- Version control
- Pipeline
- Unit testing
- Peer review
- Product development lifecycle experience
- Python
- C++
- Aircraft simulation familiarity
- Proposal writing
- Technical roadmap development
- Authorization to work in the United States without visa sponsorship
Responsibilities
- Drive technical direction for autonomous decision-making, behavior execution, and motion-planning capabilities
- Define research, experiments, and development projects
- Identify staffing needs
- Align technical plans with research and technology-roadmap objectives
- Lead architecture design and technology trade-off analysis
- Contribute to hands-on software development
- Support simulation, integration, and flight-test validation
Benefits
- Equity grants
- Catered lunches
- Snacks
- Coffee, tea, and other beverages
- Health insurance
- Dental insurance
- Life insurance
- Unlimited vacation
- 401k with match
- Work/life integration