Principal Autonomy Engineer

At Orca AI Defense we build autonomous and AI-driven maritime systems for defense and government operators - perception, navigation and decision-making that run onboard, in real time, at sea, under conditions nobody controls.

We are hiring a Principal Autonomy Engineer to architect and lead the autonomous navigation stack of our unmanned surface vessel. You will own the architecture end to end - World Model, planning, decision making, vehicle interface, and you will decide how the brain itself is built: module decomposition, behavior architecture, arbitration, state ownership, and the core technology choices behind them. You will define technical requirements and reference scenarios, own the safety and degradation architecture, and hold the interfaces between autonomy, perception, the vessel platform and the field teams.

This is not an architecture role away from the code, but it is a leadership role. You will set the technical direction of the group and you will write the parts that matter most yourself - hands on principal.

What Will You Do?

• Own the end-to-end architecture of the autonomous navigation stack: World Model → Planning → Decision Making → Vehicle Interface
• Define and own the World Model Contract: representation, uncertainty, timing and synchronization, coordinate frames, confidence and degradation modes
• Define and own the Vehicle Interface Contract: command semantics, platform guarantees, latency and failure behavior, and the abstraction that keeps the stack portable across platforms
• Decide how the autonomy brain is structured — module decomposition, behavior architecture, arbitration between behaviors, state ownership, data flow
• Design the safety and fail-safe architecture: degradation ladder, safe-state transitions, operator intervention, fault containment
• Stay hands-on in planning and decision-making code where the hardest problems are
• Lead technical hiring and technical direction for the autonomy group as it grows

• 8+ years building autonomous systems, including architecting a full autonomy stack that operated in unstructured, real-world environments
• Deep hands-on background in software on autonomous edge platforms
• Proven ownership of system-level interface contracts between perception, autonomy and platform layers
• Strong command of ROS2 or comparable real-time robotics middleware, modern C++, and the constraints of embedded compute
• Ability to hold architectural coherence in a small team under aggressive schedule pressure
• Strong system-engineering instincts applied to an autonomy stack 
• Proven technical leadership of engineers - setting direction, defining what each person owns, reviewing work, and raising the level of the people around you

Nice-To-Haves

• Maritime, USV or naval systems experience; familiarity with COLREGs
• UAV, UGV or automotive autonomy delivered inside a defense or regulated program
• Experience defining acceptance criteria and evidence for a government customer
• Simulation, SIL and scenario-based validation infrastructure

Challenges & Opportunities

• Architect an autonomous navigation product from a blank page and see it operating at sea
• Build and lead the autonomy group
• Join a small, high-impact team working at the bleeding edge of autonomy and robotics