Lead Research Engineer I - Mission Autonomy & Global Effects

The Lead Research Engineer is a key technical contributor and small engineering team lead on multiple programs aligned with division and/or group objectives. Mission autonomy is the ability for autonomous agents or teams to conduct strategic decision-making and coordinated actions toward longer-term operational objectives through persistent world modeling, predictive simulation, and adaptive planning under uncertainty and adversarial conditions.

Essential Functions

• Lead a team to develop innovative solutions to address technical challenges derived from customer requirements.

• Serve as a subject matter expert in emerging mission autonomy technologies.

• Support or lead marketing and proposal efforts in mission autonomy.

• Support or lead managing and tasking team to achieve program milestones.  

• Take primary responsibility for prime and customer-facing interactions. 

• Stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in mission autonomy and other areas relevant to Scientific Systems. 

• Collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to advance R&D roadmaps.

• The role does require the ability to sit or stand at a desk and work on a computer for prolonged periods of time. 

• This role may require occasional travel when necessary.

• May require the ability to push/pull/lift up to 15 pounds.  

• Must be able to obtain and maintain a US DOD Security Clearance.

Requirements

asic Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in Math, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Physical Science, Operations Research, Data Science, or equivalent experience and 7+ years of progressive autonomy technologies experience including team leadership in a related industry, a Master degree and 5+ years of related engineering experience, or a Ph.D. degree and 2+ years working  in a related engineering role.

• Experience working in a team leadership role in a related industry.

• Proven track record of leading proposals and winning contracts.

• Proven track record of leading programs in the principal investigator role or similar experience.

• Experience in building and integrating software for edge platforms.

• Experience with C/C++, Python, and/or project-specific required languages. (e.g. Java, Rust, etc.) 

• Experience assisting with non-technical programmatic priorities as needed, including staff planning, budget estimation and tracking, and customer-facing interactions. 

• Background in robotics technologies related to motion planning, behavior modeling, or decision-making and their accompanying algorithms.

• Experience with simulation tools and environments (e.g., AFSIM, NGTS) for validation, verification, and training.

Preferred Qualifications

• M.S. or Ph.D. degrees 

• Familiar with AI/ML standard libraries and tools.

• Experience working in Linux-based development environments. 

• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail. 
• Experience working on both classical autonomy and machine learning and the combination of the two, blending rule-based systems with learning-based methods such as reinforcement learning and generative methods to achieve resilient, adaptive behavior.
• Experience developing software modules that combine planning, decision-making, and behavior execution in dynamic, adversarial environments.

• Experience implementing and testing behavior architectures such as multi-agent collaboration, target engagement, payload management, reconnaissance, and engagement in adversarial scenarios.
• Ability to analyze mission logs to diagnose failures and optimize models for iterative development.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills including technical writing skills. 

• Ability to identify and creatively solve complex problems 

Benefits

• Salary: $150,000 - $196,000 (Depends on Experience)
• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Training & Development
• Hybrid Work Schedule
• Free Food & Snacks
• Wellness Resources
• Summer 9/80 work schedule