Autonomy Engineer, Planning & Decision-Making

Knightwerx; Scottsdale (AZ); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Travel opportunities

Collaborative engineering environment

Job summary

Knightwerx in Scottsdale, AZ seeks a software professional to advance autonomy systems for unmanned aircraft. You will design planning and decision-making components and integrate them with ROS 2 to enable reliable autonomous flight behavior.

You will work with autonomy, software, flight test, and systems engineering teams to deliver production-quality autonomy solutions for commercial and government platforms. Strong C++ skills and hands-on autonomous planning experience are essential.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• 2-5 years of professional experience developing robotics, autonomy, or aerospace software systems.
• Recent hands-on experience building autonomous planning or decision-making algorithms.
• Strong C++ software development skills and experience writing production-level code.
• Experience working with ROS 2.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement motion planning and trajectory generation algorithms for autonomous aircraft.
• Develop autonomy capabilities supporting structured flight behaviors and mission-specific maneuvers.
• Build prediction models, intent inference frameworks, and behavior forecasting solutions for autonomous systems.
• Integrate planning and decision-making modules into a broader autonomy architecture and collaborate across engineering teams.
• Develop supporting infrastructure and production-quality software that enables reliable autonomy integration and testing.
• Contribute to flight demonstrations, system validation, and real-world autonomy performance improvements.

Skills

C++ development

ROS 2

Autonomy planning

Robotics software

Communication

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in a technical field

Tools

uXRCE

MAVLink

Job description

At Knightwerx, you'll help develop the autonomy systems that enable next-generation unmanned aircraft to operate intelligently in complex, dynamic environments. This role sits at the intersection of robotics, aerospace, and AI, focused on building the planning and decision-making capabilities that drive autonomous flight behavior.

You'll work closely with autonomy, software, flight test, and systems engineering teams to design and deploy real-world autonomy solutions for both commercial and government applications. If you're passionate about robotics, motion planning, autonomous systems, and seeing your work fly on operational platforms, this is an opportunity to make a direct impact on mission-critical technology.

Technical Challenges You Will Tackle

• Design and implement motion planning and trajectory generation algorithms for autonomous aircraft.
• Develop autonomy capabilities supporting structured flight behaviors and mission-specific maneuvers.
• Build prediction models, intent inference frameworks, and behavior forecasting solutions for autonomous systems.
• Integrate planning and decision-making modules into a broader autonomy architecture and collaborate across engineering teams.
• Develop supporting infrastructure and production-quality software that enables reliable autonomy integration and testing.
• Contribute to flight demonstrations, system validation, and real-world autonomy performance improvements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a related technical field or equivalent practical experience.
• 2-5 years of professional experience developing robotics, autonomy, or aerospace software systems.
• Recent hands-on experience building autonomous planning or decision-making algorithms.
• Strong C++ software development skills and experience writing production-level code.
• Experience working with ROS 2.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with uXRCE and MAVLink.
• Experience applying machine learning or reinforcement learning techniques to autonomy systems.
• Background in collaborative autonomy, multi-agent systems, or distributed decision-making.
• Hands-on experience supporting flight testing and operational demonstrations.

About Knightwerx

Knightwerx develops American-made, AI-powered unmanned aerial systems and remote sensing technologies that support human-machine teaming in mission-critical environments. We build next-generation aerospace and autonomy solutions for both commercial and government customers where performance, speed, and reliability matter.

As a growing company, we offer the opportunity to work close to the mission, close to the product, and close to the decisions that shape what gets built.

Additional Information

• Onsite position in Scottsdale, AZ
• Relocation assistance available for this role
• Travel required as needed to support testing, demonstrations, and customer activities
• Collaborative engineering environment
• Must be able to comply with applicable export control requirements