Technical Operations Engineer - Mission Watchfloor

About Us

With more than 2 million nautical miles sailed and 50,000 days at sea, Saildrone has earned the trust of governments worldwide. Our unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) deliver continuous, real-time intelligence in the toughest oceans on Earth—giving our partners faster awareness, stronger security, and a decisive edge at sea.

Our USVs are long-range, extreme-endurance platforms powered by advanced sensors and proprietary AI - they have been designed to operate where no crewed vessel can. They collect critical insights above and below the surface to support border security, law enforcement, naval operations, and undersea infrastructure protection.

Headquartered in Alameda, CA, with offices in Washington, DC, and global deployment hubs, Saildrone operates missions worldwide. Join a fast-moving, mission-driven team at the intersection of AI, autonomy, and defense technology—where data turns into intelligence, and intelligence drives action.

The Role

As a Watchfloor Technical Operations Engineer you will serve as the front line of technical defense for Saildrone’s global fleet. You’ll sit at the center of live operations, monitoring system health, diagnosing issues, and responding rapidly to ensure our vehicles continue delivering critical data to customers around the world.

During business hours, you’ll be stationed on the watchfloor alongside mission operators, providing real-time technical overwatch across hardware, software, and network systems. Outside of business hours, you’ll participate in an on-call rotation that ensures 24/7 coverage for the fleet.

Your actions will directly influence Saildrone’s most important operational metrics and revenue-generating capability. This is a role for someone who thrives in fast-moving, high-stakes environments. You’ll be the person everyone counts on when a vehicle goes offline mid-mission, when a new payload misbehaves, or when a root cause needs to be identified quickly. If you take pride in being the one who keeps the system running — the quiet hero behind every successful mission — this is where you belong.

Responsibilities

• Develop a top-to-bottom understanding of complex sensors and embedded systems as they relate to an entire, functioning system.
• Monitor live vehicle operations across the global fleet, providing real-time technical overwatch using telemetry and diagnostic tools to proactively identify anomalies and emerging issues.
• Provide internal customer service to supported mission execution teams to quickly resolve any technical issues they experience, including performing readiness reviews and pre-deployment checks to ensure vehicles are fully mission-capable.
• Build trust with cross-functional teams and participate in root cause analysis to identify areas for improvement
• Deliver structured technical feedback into engineering, helping to shape long-term fixes, design revisions, and reliability improvements.
• Provide on-call support to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix software, hardware, and networking issues on autonomous surface vehicles
• Participate in on-call rotations for high-impact, high-priority issue resolution
• Develop and maintain troubleshooting playbooks, documentation, and tools to speed up incident response and improve team consistency.
• Contribute directly to fleet reliability metrics, maintaining accountability for vehicle uptime, mission success rates, and incident resolution performance.

Required Skills and Experience

• 2+ years in a field support, systems integration, operations engineering, or technical watchfloor environment.
• Ability to independently apply knowledge of electrical diagrams/schematics, and mechanical systems to identify a problem with a product, determine the cause, and execute an appropriate repair.
• Familiar with electrical, mechanical, and materials engineering concepts.
• Able to context switch quickly to respond to new and urgent issues.
• Comfortable obtaining data and diagnosing issues from software and networking platforms using command-line tools on a Linux OS.
• Strong understanding of electrical, mechanical, and networking fundamentals, and how these disciplines interact within complex embedded systems for diagnostics, log parsing, and system interrogation.
• Proven ability to interpret telemetry, logs, and system metrics to diagnose complex performance issues.
• Basic scripting ability (Bash, Python, or similar) to automate repetitive diagnostics or data-gathering tasks.
• Maintain appropriate records and inventories. Possess organizational habits and a willingness to define, follow, and improve process and work standards.
• Strong people skills and an ability to work with a wide variety of teams as a leader, and a follower
• Willingness to work flexible hours, including participation in an off-hours on-call rotation for fleet continuity.

Desired Skills and Experience

• Experience in field engineering, test engineering, operations engineering, or integration/prototype roles.
• Experience in mission operations, NOC, or remote monitoring environments.
• Knowledge of service-level objectives and metrics (SLI, SLO, SLA, Error Budget, Burn Rate).
• Experience applying continuous improvement and root cause analysis to scale operations in a start-up environment.
• Familiarity with network and message protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, CAN, RS-485, RS-232, SPI, I2C, routing, ACLs) and using APIs to interact with processes and components.
• Experience with autonomous systems, marine electronics, or sensor payloads.
• Proficiency in industry-standard CAD tools (NX, Solidworks, Fusion 360, EAGLE, KiCad, Altium).
• Experience leading teams, including third-party contractors, to execute operational plans and deliver on contractual obligations on time and within budget.
• Strong documentation skills: writing process standards, procedures, and work instructions.
• Familiarity with project management tools (Jira, Confluence, Asana, Monday, etc.).
• Experience in marine operations.

Location: This position is in Washington, DC.

All employees are required to provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. within their first 3 days of work. Please note that the Company does not sponsor employees for work visas or permanent resident cards to work in the U.S. If you need sponsorship for a work visa or green card, you will not be qualified for employment with Saildrone.

Benefits:

• Paid time off, including vacation, bereavement, jury duty, sick time and parental leave
• Comprehensive and competitive medical, dental and vision plans, and HSA with employer matching.
• Company sponsored life insurance
• Stock Options
• Annual stipend for continued learning and development

Individual compensation packages are based on geographic location, scope of the role, and relevant experience, among other factors.

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