Software Engineer, Autonomy

About the role

What we do

Responsibilities

• Build and integrate mission-level autonomy frameworks for goal-oriented behavior, task assignment, and system-level coordination
• Enable intuitive human command and supervision, communicating intent, and building operator confidence in mission-critical contexts
• Develop algorithms for collaborative autonomy involving multiple aircraft
• Ensure real-time performance and reliability of autonomy software, especially under compute-constrained and communications-limited conditions.
• Design autonomy software with fault-tolerance, fail-safe behavior, and robustness to uncertain environments or degraded sensors.
• Validate and test in simulation and in flight, ensuring mission success in challenging conditions faced by firefighting aircraft
• Collaborate closely with other members of the engineering team to develop and test the algorithms that power the wildfire mission autonomy system
• Contribute to simulation environments for training, testing, and validation

Qualifications

• Deep expertise (6+ years of experience) in software engineering for UAS, robotics, or other safety-critical applications 
• Strong proficiency in C++14 (or newer) development for resource-limited environments
• Knowledge of planning, state machines, or behavior trees
• Background in robotics, control systems, or aerospace autonomy
• Familiarity with simulation tools (e.g., Unreal Engine, AirSim, AFSIM)
• Understanding of communication protocols, real-time constraints, and embedded systems

What will make you a great fit

• You’re excited about Rain’s mission to stop wildfires before they grow out of control
• You thrive in small teams, where you can see the immediate impact of your knowledge and expertise
• You have experience with reinforcement learning or adaptive autonomy
• You’re familiar with STANAG/DoD autonomy standards and DO-178C
• You’ve previously worked with uncrewed aerial systems, aviation, aerospace
• You’ve served as a firefighter
• You are willing to travel at least 15% of the year for validation testing

Location

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