Senior Payloads Software Engineer – Autonomous Robotics

Forterra; Clarksburg (MA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Premium Healthcare Benefits

Paid time off 20 days

Parental leave 7 weeks

Tuition reimbursement

401(k) matching up to 4%

Job summary

Forterra is seeking a senior software engineer to design, develop, and field software for autonomous robotics and ground vehicle systems. You will support missions for national security customers, collaborating with engineers, researchers, and product managers.

The role emphasizes payload integration, system optimization, and close collaboration with users across the organization. US salary range and comprehensive benefits accompany a strong, production-focused software culture.

Qualifications

• 3 or more years of relevant experience
• B.S. in computer science, engineering, robotics, or related field or relevant experience/show of skill
• Experience in integrating software on hardware systems, including sensors, effectors, andcomputeplatforms
• Strong programming skills in languages in C/C++ (preferred)
• Experience vehicle networks and diagnostics(CAN, CAN-FD, Ethernet,FlexRay, UDS/J1939) and to logging/trace tools
• Solid core software engineering skills: software design, unit testing, debugging
• Ability to consistently deliver production-quality software in a continuously integrated environment
• Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, and software design principles
• Demonstrates clean, maintainable code and documentation practices
• Experience working in teams and a willingness to proactively solve problems

Responsibilities

• Bring payloads into real operations: Integrate and deploy paylaods on customer-bound hardware platforms and validate it in real-world conditions.
• Build with users and stakeholders: Work across the organization and directly with end-users to deliver new behaviors, payload integrations, and emerging mission use-cases.
• Optimize the full system: Take a holistic view of autonomous vehicle behavior—how sensing, compute, controls, and other subsystems interact—and drive overall performance improvements.
• Close the loop from test to deploy: Analyze test results, identify issues and root causes, and collaborate with engineering teams to drive problems to resolution
• Connect product needs to R&D execution: Partner across business development and engineering teams to translate customer requirements into delivered autonomy capabilities.
• Travel: Travel ranging from 10-25% and 25-50% depending on candidate preference and role placement. Ability to commute to Arlington, VA as needed.

Skills

C/C++

Robotics

Software integration

Vehicle networks

Python

ROS2

Team collaboration

Education

B.S. in computer science, engineering, robotics, or related field

Tools

JIRA

Job description

Forterra is seeking a senior software engineer to design, develop, and field software for autonomous robotics and ground vehicle systems. You will support missions for national security customers, collaborating with engineers, researchers, and product managers.

The role emphasizes payload integration, system optimization, and close collaboration with users across the organization. US salary range and comprehensive benefits accompany a strong, production-focused software culture.