Autonomous Systems Modeling and Simulation Engineer

About the role

The modeling and simulation engineer role requires a unique combination of skills that brings together vehicle dynamics expertise and experience producing and delivering modular software solutions. This engineer will develop, maintain, and tune multi-degree-of-freedom models of complex vehicle systems—such as surface and undersea vessels, aircraft, or robotic platforms—that can be used in performance prediction, controls development, and simulation framework creation. The engineer should understand how to identify and select appropriate modeling approaches and fidelity based on use cases and system requirements.  

Candidates should be capable of determining physical or hydrodynamic/aerodynamic coefficients based on limited data—through analytical methods, system identification, 3D modeling, or computational fluid dynamics (CFD). They should be experienced in developing and using dynamic models for vehicle maneuvering, control, and performance assessment. The engineer will use models to assess vehicle performance under various operational and degraded conditions and relate those results to higher-level system capabilities. 

A successful candidate will have a strong background in general software development as well as model and simulation. This role requires the use of general programming languages to create models that describe a system. The engineer will take the model through the full design lifecycle process: planning, implementation, validation, data processing, and integration into the larger system.  

The role involves collaboration across disciplines, working both individually and in concert with other engineers and subject matter experts to connect marine craft dynamics models to models of other domains including power and energy, communication systems, and cyber models. As part of this collaboration, the engineer will be responsible for dashboarding/storyboarding to go from data to system insights and customer business values. 

Integer is a science and technology research and development organization. As such, much of our work entails developing novel solutions, working at the edge of what is technically possible, advancing innovation across a range of challenging domains. To achieve internal and customer project goals all candidates must be comfortable conducting independent research, learning new technical concepts, and documenting findings clearly for diverse audiences. 

What you'll do

• U.S. Citizen with the ability to obtain a US DoD Secret clearance. 

• 8+ years of experience within technical field 

• Bachelor’s degree in naval architecture, marine engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, robotics, machine learning, software engineering, or other similar technical disciplines  

• Experience with physics-based modeling, numerical simulation, and scientific datasets. 

• Understanding of Digital Engineering and Digital Twins 

• Strong data science/analytics background 

• Experience with methodology selection based on the problem/application (potential flow, analytical modeling, high-fidelity modeling).  

• Experience with meshing and discretization problems.  

• Deep experience with Coordinate Frame transformations and strong grasp of dynamics/kinematics 

• Experience with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling and trade-off analysis to determine adequate modeling approach 

• Basic PID and control theory 

• Familiarity with Functional Mock-up Interface Standards 

• Experience with multi-model simulations 

• Proficiency in at least one scientific development programming language (e.g., Python, MATLAB/Simulink) 

• Experience with additional programming languages: Rust and/or C++ 

• Experience with scientific computing tools such as NumPy, SciPy, Xarray, MATLAB, or equivalent frameworks 

• Experience verifying and validating models & simulations 

• Familiarity with modern development practices including Git/ADO, testing, CI/CD, code review, and documentation 

• Experience and willingness to work with AI tools to efficiently accelerate development 

• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to interface across multidisciplinary teams and external partners 

Desired Qualifications 

• Familiarity with systems engineering and practices like MBSE and SysML V2. 

• Deep technical knowledge and modeling and simulation approaches in marine vehicle dynamics and guidance (GNC) algorithms 

• Experience with autopilot design and tuning. 

• Experience applying naval architecture modeling and simulation tools to both surface and subsea vessels.  

• Experience with geospatial data, GIS, environmental modeling, oceanography, underwater acoustics, or acoustic signal processing.  

• Knowledge of autonomy frameworks, control systems, decision-making algorithms, and real-time system constraints in distributed, multi-agent environments. 

• Experience with design of experiments 

• Experience with uncertainty quantification and propagation 

• Experience with data manipulation: filtering, processing, state estimation 

• Experience with dashboarding and data storytelling to translate modeling and simulation results into actionable insights and business value. 

• Experience writing software and manipulating data streams from the sensors of physical systems to update physics-based or data-driven models to reflect the status of the physical system.  

• Graduate degree (M.S./Ph.D.) in a relevant engineering or applied science discipline. 

• Active Secret or higher DoD security clearance.