Principal AUV Autonomy Engineer

Bedrock Ocean Exploration; Richmond (VA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 235,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits package

Job summary

Bedrock Ocean Exploration in Richmond, CA, is seeking a Staff Robotics Engineer to own the architecture of the autonomous underwater vehicle software stack. You will oversee GNC, state estimation, sensing, and mission autonomy, ensuring robust, scalable systems for long-duration campaigns.

You'll lead cross-disciplinary teams, set high standards for development and testing, mentor engineers, and champion safe, reliable operation with over-the-air updates and fleet-wide deployment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in robotics or autonomous-systems software, with 5–7 years shipping at scale.
• Staff-level technical leadership across subsystems or teams.
• Strong C++ and/or Python skills; hands-on ROS/ROS2 on real hardware.
• Deep expertise in GNC, state estimation, sensor fusion, or mission autonomy.
• Experience deploying software across a fleet including OTA updates, versioning, and rollback.

Responsibilities

• Own the vehicle software architecture and drive modular, versioned interfaces across subsystems.
• Lead cross-disciplinary robotics problems end-to-end for future missions.
• Set standards for building, tests, and validating software with metrics.
• Oversee testing across simulation, hardware-in-the-loop, and field trials.
• Mentor engineers and drive technical alignment across robotics, hardware, and software.
• Support on-call rotations for continuous missions.

Skills

C++

Python

ROS/ROS2

Leadership

Job description

Bedrock Ocean Exploration in Richmond, CA, is seeking a Staff Robotics Engineer to own the architecture of the autonomous underwater vehicle software stack. You will oversee GNC, state estimation, sensing, and mission autonomy, ensuring robust, scalable systems for long-duration campaigns.

You'll lead cross-disciplinary teams, set high standards for development and testing, mentor engineers, and champion safe, reliable operation with over-the-air updates and fleet-wide deployment.