Senior Autonomy Software Engineer

About Odin Dynamics

Odin Dynamics is a defense technology company founded in 2025 to build autonomous underwater vehicles that will define the next era of undersea warfare. The company is delivering capable, resilient autonomous systems that strengthen the strategic advantage of the United States and its allied navies.

 This is a greenfield program. The platform is being built from scratch. Engineers here will take incomplete requirements, early hardware, and difficult technical constraints and turn them into production-ready autonomy systems that perform in the field. Decisions are driven by physics, test data, and product outcomes — not inherited convention or documentation volume.

 

The Opportunity

Odin Dynamics is looking for a Senior Autonomy Software Engineer to own the complete autonomy and perception stack for their autonomous underwater vehicle platform. You will own the full lifecycle — requirements, architecture, algorithm design, implementation, model training, validation, simulation, integration, field testing, sea-trial support, and continued improvement after deployment.

 This is not a research-only role. It is not a narrow application-software role. You will develop autonomy algorithms, implement them in production software, validate them against real-world operating conditions, and remain accountable for their behavior in the field. The role spans autonomy, perception, decision-making, planning, machine learning, classical computer vision, sensor fusion, simulation, and mission-level behavior.

 

What You’ll Do

• •      Serve as the Responsible Engineer for the autonomy and perception stack, owning it end-to-end
• •      Develop greenfield autonomy software from initial requirements through field-tested, production-ready implementation
• •      Own autonomy behavior across mission planning, path planning, localization, state estimation, sensor fusion, perception, obstacle avoidance, recovery behavior, and fault-aware decision-making
• •      Design and implement algorithms for object detection, recognition, classification, tracking, mapping, navigation, and autonomous decision-making
• •      Develop both machine-learning-based and classical perception approaches, selecting the appropriate method based on mission requirements, data availability, compute constraints, reliability, and test evidence
• •      Train, validate, evaluate, and improve perception and autonomy models using real, simulated, and replayed data
• •      Build and maintain data workflows for model evaluation, scenario replay, regression testing, performance analysis, and failure investigation
• •      Develop and maintain autonomy test environments including HOOTL/SIL, HIL/HITL, scenario-based simulation, and model validation and regression testing
• •      Collaborate with Avionics engineers on sensor selection, sensing architecture, and perception requirements
• •      Collaborate with Embedded Software engineers on platform integration, sensor interfaces, data pipelines, timing, and logging
• •      Analyze vehicle behavior from logs, telemetry, simulation results, and field data to identify root causes and drive corrective improvements
• •      Define metrics for autonomy performance, perception quality, model reliability, mission success, and failure modes
• •      Mentor other engineers and contribute to technical reviews while remaining hands-on
• •      Support field testing and sea trials when required

 

You Should Have

• •      Deep practical experience developing autonomy, perception, planning, or robotics software for real-world systems
• •      Strong proficiency in at least one systems programming language and a scripting language used for autonomy development, data analysis, and testing
• •      Experience with machine learning or deep learning for perception, classification, detection, tracking, or related autonomy tasks
• •      Experience with classical computer vision, state estimation, localization, sensor fusion, or related non-ML perception methods
• •      Experience with path planning, motion planning, obstacle avoidance, mission planning, behavior trees, state machines, or other autonomous decision-making approaches
• •      Experience integrating autonomy software into real systems with imperfect sensors, constrained compute, noisy data, and difficult operating environments
• •      Experience training, validating, evaluating, and improving models using structured metrics, simulation, replay, and field data
• •      Experience developing reliable production software, not just prototypes, research code, or isolated algorithms
• •      Experience building or extending simulation, replay, SIL, or HIL test environments for autonomy validation
• •      Demonstrated ability to work from first principles, make defensible technical decisions, and rapidly iterate between design, implementation, testing, and refinement
• •      U.S. citizenship and eligibility to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance
• •      Approximately 5+ years of relevant autonomy, perception, robotics, or production software experience preferred, though demonstrated technical depth and a record of delivering difficult systems matter more than years

 

Nice to Have

• •      Background in autonomous vehicles, unmanned systems, UAVs, underwater systems, maritime systems, self-driving vehicles, drones, or robotics
• •      Experience developing autonomy software for GPS-denied, communications-constrained, or low-observability environments
• •      Experience taking autonomy or perception software from early architecture through field-tested deployment
• •      Machine-learning model development, training, evaluation, and deployment using modern frameworks
• •      Experience building simulation, synthetic data, scenario generation, Monte Carlo, or model-validation environments
• •      Experience debugging autonomy behavior using logs, telemetry, visualization tools, and post-mission analysis

 

Compensation and Benefits

Base Salary: $180,000 - $230,000, depending on experience, plus equity and commission.