Senior Robotics Software Engineer - Autonomy Runtime & Integration

Description

At Orca AI Defense we build autonomous and AI-driven maritime systems for defense and government operators - perception, navigation and decision-making that run onboard, in real time, at sea, under conditions nobody controls.

We are hiring a Senior Robotics Software Engineer to build the system the autonomy runs inside. You own the runtime - ROS2 architecture, module lifecycle, orchestration, state management, configuration, fault handling, and both ends of the stack: World Model ingestion and the Vehicle Interface down to the platform control systems.

You will face hard real-time constraints, embedded compute, and a system that has to keep behaving correctly when parts of it do not. You own the stack across its full depth, from the interfaces at its edges to how the whole thing behaves in the water.

What Will You Do?

• Own the autonomy runtime: ROS2 and modern C++ architecture, module lifecycle, orchestration, state management, data flow, configuration, fault handling and recovery
• Implement the system's two contracts: World Model ingestion and Vehicle Interface adapters to the platform control systems
• Own deployment to the vessel compute: builds, packaging, versioning, configuration management and CI
• Work with system engineering and field teams on vessel bring-up, sea trials and debugging in the field
• Build logging, recording, replay and observability - the ability to take any run at sea and reproduce it exactly on a desk
• Integrate and operate the simulation environment (SIL)
• Own reliability, timing and performance of the stack on embedded hardware

Requirements

• 5+ years of software engineering in robotics or autonomous systems
• Deep ROS2 and modern C++ ; real-time and concurrent systems
• Proven experience building the infrastructure around autonomy
• Hands-on integration with vehicle platforms or low-level control interfaces
• Experience with simulation integration and automated testing for robotics
• A field mindset

Nice-To-Haves

• Maritime platforms, marine autopilots, NMEA / AIS / radar interfaces
• Experience making an autonomy stack portable across multiple vehicle platforms
• HIL bench design and hardware-in-the-loop validation
• Observability and data tooling for robotics
• Defense or regulated programs

Challenges & Opportunities

• Build the software layer of an autonomous vessel from the ground up
• Own the infrastructure for a new product
• Be on the boat for the whole path from first line of code to delivery
• Join a small, high-impact team working at the bleeding edge of autonomy and robotics