Chief Maritime Autonomy Architect

Dominion Dynamics; Ottawa; On-site; CAD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health benefits

Job summary

Dominion Dynamics is seeking a Head of Autonomy, Maritime to set the technical direction for maritime autonomy across surface and subsurface vessels, including navigation, perception, and mission autonomy with limited or no link to home.

You will lead the maritime autonomy team, hire engineers, collaborate with hardware, software and simulation, and conduct sea trials from days, not quarters, to deliver fielded capability for CAF and allied operations.

Qualifications

• A senior engineering leader who has put maritime autonomy in the water.
• Depth in the marine autonomy problem: navigation without GNSS, perception in sea clutter, collision avoidance and COLREGS, and mission autonomy under acoustic or satcom bandwidth limits.
• Experience leading engineers—a team you hired, structured, and set technical direction for, against a roadmap you were accountable for.
• Command of both deterministic policies and probabilistic ones, and clear judgement about which the mission calls for.
• A track record of taking autonomy from prototype to fielded system: test campaigns, failure analysis, and the evidence that convinced someone to trust it.
• Based in Ottawa, or ready to relocate — this role is on-site with the team and close to the customer.

Responsibilities

• Set the maritime autonomy roadmap — capability by capability, hull by hull — and turn it into a sequenced technical plan with real milestones.
• Build perception and navigation for the surface and subsurface environment: radar, EO/IR, and acoustic sensing through clutter, spray, glare, fog, and ice, and localization that holds without GNSS.
• Design mission autonomy for long endurance on an intermittent link — what the vessel decides alone, what it holds for the operator, and how it behaves when the link stays down.
• Make navigation safe and legible at sea: collision avoidance and COLREGS-consistent behaviour that a bridge watch and a certifying authority can both follow.
• Integrate with AuraNet for tasking, telemetry, and mesh, designed for bandwidth-constrained and disconnected operation from the start.
• Decide where deterministic policies belong and where probabilistic ones do, and set the standard both have to clear — in simulation and on the water — before they reach an operator.
• Hire and lead the maritime autonomy team, working shoulder to shoulder with hardware, software, and simulation.
• Get on the boat. Sea trials, integration, and operator feedback, in days not quarters.

Skills

Senior leadership

Maritime autonomy

Roadmap planning

Navigation without GNSS

Perception in sea clutter

Collision avoidance

COLREGS knowledge

Mission autonomy

Team leadership

Tools

ROS 2

Job description

Dominion Dynamics is seeking a Head of Autonomy, Maritime to set the technical direction for maritime autonomy across surface and subsurface vessels, including navigation, perception, and mission autonomy with limited or no link to home.

You will lead the maritime autonomy team, hire engineers, collaborate with hardware, software and simulation, and conduct sea trials from days, not quarters, to deliver fielded capability for CAF and allied operations.