Senior Autonomy Engineer

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

This aerospace startup is reshaping how the world connects from above. The team is developing solar-powered, long-endurance UAVs that operate at the edge of the atmosphere, delivering next-generation, low-latency communication capabilities to areas traditional satellite and ground-based networks cannot serve well. The vision is to redefine global connectivity for everything from underserved regions and disaster response to dynamic, mission-critical coverage.

Backed by top-tier investors and led by a tight team of operators and engineers from the most respected names in aerospace, defense, and telecom, this is a rare ground-floor opportunity. They are lean, builder-led, and moving fast toward a near-term flight demonstration.

This team has the technical depth, the network, and the timing to leap past incumbents and define the category. We prefer this person to be located in the Bay Area and onsite at headquarters, but for the right candidate we may consider a hybrid arrangement.

About the Role

This team is looking for a Senior Autonomy Engineer to own the design, architecture, and development of the entire autonomy software stack across the vehicle, payload, and ground infrastructure. As a true founding-team engineer, this person will be a world-class individual contributor and architect, with full latitude to shape how the aircraft flies, recovers, and eventually coordinates as a fleet. This is not a maintenance seat. It is the chance to define the autonomy platform from the ground up and watch your code fly.

What You'll Own

• End-to-end autonomy architecture across vehicle, payload, and ground infrastructure for a long-endurance, high-altitude aircraft
• Mission management and behavioral executive: design the high-level state machines, behavior trees, and contingency logic that govern mission phases, abort behaviors, fault response, and payload coordination.
• Path and trajectory planning: build the algorithms for auto-takeoff, landing, dynamic waypoint navigation, geofencing, and end-to-end autonomous routing. Scale toward cooperative and non-cooperative avoidance and energy-aware planning that accounts for battery state of charge, expected solar harvest, and predicted spatial wind fields.
• Health, status, and fault detection: design robust fault detection and isolation that distinguishes healthy from faulty sensors and actuators, monitors system health, and triggers safe contingency behaviors on board in real time.
• Fleet management and simulation: build the centralized software that coordinates multiple vehicles across multiple sites, and stand up the cloud infrastructure for large-scale distributed simulation and log analysis.
• Infrastructure and testing: design and optimize CI/CD pipelines for autonomy software, drive SIL and HIL validation, and own flight readiness for early prototypes.

What We're Looking For

• Deep, hands-on experience with path planning algorithms, finite state machines, and behavior trees. You have shipped autonomy that has flown or driven in the real world, not just in simulation.
• Strong production-level software engineering skill in a typed language. Heavy preference for Rust. C++ also strongly considered for the right profile.
• Broad systems architecture instincts. You are comfortable architecting complex, scalable software that bridges embedded vehicle software, ground systems, and cloud-based fleet managers.
• Embedded software experience on complex hardware platforms. Flying vehicles preferred, but robotics, autonomous ground systems, and other high-stakes hardware count.
• Ability to move fast and build in ambiguity. You reach for first principles rather than industry standards when the standards do not yet exist for the problem.
• Strong physics or GNC-adjacent intuition is a plus. The ability to look at flight logs and reason not only about whether mission management responded correctly, but why the aircraft is behaving the way it is, makes you stand out.
• A strong problem-solving mindset with a bias for action and excellent collaboration instincts.
• Excitement to be part of an ambitious, technically rigorous founding team, and a desire to do the best work of your career here.

Why You'll Love Working Here

• Join a powerhouse team of brilliant builders
• Collaborate with a tight-knit crew of deeply technical operators and engineers from the most respected programs in aerospace, defense, and telecom. You will work alongside founders and leaders with a track record of shipping at the highest bar.
• Competitive startup salary
• Be paid well to do the most energizing work of your career.
• Own meaningful upside from day one. Shape the trajectory of the company and participate fully in the value you help create.
• Strong medical coverage so you can stay healthy while pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
• Dog-friendly office with Bay views
• Bring your pup and enjoy a beautiful workspace with panoramic water views that spark creativity and focus.
• Work on a uniquely hard problem
• Architect autonomy for an aircraft that lives at the edge of the atmosphere, where the wind is often faster than the vehicle and every kilogram, watt, and line of code matters. This is the kind of problem that nerd-snipes the best autonomy engineers in the world.