Autonomy Architect for High-Altitude Solar UAVs

AdAstra Talent Advisors; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive startup salary

Dog-friendly office with Bay views

Job summary

AdAstra Talent Advisors is sourcing a Senior Autonomy Engineer for a Bay Area–based aerospace startup focused on solar-powered, long-endurance UAVs with edge-of-atmosphere operations. This founding-team role offers full latitude to shape the autonomy platform from the ground up and bring real aircraft autonomy to flight.

The role requires hands-on development of the entire autonomy software stack across vehicle, payload, and ground infrastructure, with emphasis on path planning, state machines,

Qualifications

• Shipped autonomy that has flown or driven in the real world.
• Deep knowledge of path planning, state machines, and behavior trees.
• Strong software engineering in typed languages; Rust preferred, C++ also considered.
• Experience bridging embedded vehicle software, ground systems, and cloud fleet managers.
• Ability to move fast in ambiguity with a first-principles approach.
• Ability to read flight logs and reason about aircraft behavior.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end autonomy architecture across vehicle, payload, and ground infrastructure.
• Design mission management, state machines, behavior trees, and contingency logic.
• Develop path and trajectory planning for auto-takeoff, landing, and autonomous routing.
• Implement health, fault detection, and safe contingencies on board in real time.
• Build fleet management and cloud simulation for multi-vehicle coordination.
• Lead CI/CD, SIL/HIL validation, and flight readiness for prototypes.

Skills

Path planning

Finite state machines

Behavior trees

Rust

C++

Tools

Rust

C++

Job description

AdAstra Talent Advisors is sourcing a Senior Autonomy Engineer for a Bay Area–based aerospace startup focused on solar-powered, long-endurance UAVs with edge-of-atmosphere operations. This founding-team role offers full latitude to shape the autonomy platform from the ground up and bring real aircraft autonomy to flight.

The role requires hands-on development of the entire autonomy software stack across vehicle, payload, and ground infrastructure, with emphasis on path planning, state machines,