Underwater Acoustics Engineer: DVL & Sonar Systems

Superorganism; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Ulysses in San Francisco is seeking an Acoustics Engineer to own core underwater sensing payloads and algorithms, including DVL, MBES, Side Scan, USBL, and related modalities, with a path to volume production. You will collaborate across robotics, autonomy, and manufacturing teams to ensure that acoustic systems perform in the lab and translate reliably to real-world ocean deployments at scale.

The role blends physics, signal processing, electronics, embedded software, and production testing in

Qualifications

• Strong fundamentals in underwater acoustics / sonar / signal processing.
• Proven ability to develop working systems, not just theoretical ones.
• Demonstrated experience shipping acoustic products—DVL/MBES/Side Scan/USBL or related.

Responsibilities

• Own acoustic product development elements end-to-end: design, prototype, validate, and production.
• Develop signal processing and estimation pipelines for sonar modalities.
• Build hardware/software stack: sensors, embedded compute, firmware, logging.
• Scale to production: cost-down, DFx, supplier liaison, test fixtures.
• Test in real-world sea trials and document performance.

Skills

Underwater acoustics

Signal processing

DSP

Python programming

C/C++

Embedded systems

Autonomous vehicles

Job description

Ulysses in San Francisco is seeking an Acoustics Engineer to own core underwater sensing payloads and algorithms, including DVL, MBES, Side Scan, USBL, and related modalities, with a path to volume production. You will collaborate across robotics, autonomy, and manufacturing teams to ensure that acoustic systems perform in the lab and translate reliably to real-world ocean deployments at scale.

The role blends physics, signal processing, electronics, embedded software, and production testing in