Mission Autonomy- Situational Awareness Lead Jobs

Merlin Labs

Location:
United States, Boston

Category:
IT - Software Development

Contract Type:
Not provided

Salary:

Not provided

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Job Description:

Merlin is a venture backed aerospace startup building a non-human pilot to enable both reduced crew and uncrewed flight. Backed by some of the world’s leading investors, Merlin is scaling alongside our customers to begin leveraging autonomy today to solve some of aviation’s biggest challenges.

Job Responsibility:

Drive the technical direction and deliver capabilities supporting perception and situational awareness for airborne autonomy systems
Define the research, experiments, and development projects to deliver situational awareness for mission autonomy using diverse sensors, fusion algorithms, and world model representations
Identify gaps and define staffing needs to develop and deliver perception, world modeling, and situational awareness capabilities
Ensure the situational awareness plans align with short term R&D objectives, long term objectives, and the Merlin technology roadmap
Lead architecture design and perform architecture and technology trade-off analysis, accounting for short term objectives and long term goals in decision making
Step in to a hands-on software development role as needed
Support simulation, integration, and flight test activities to validate real-world performance
Collaborate across Merlin to develop novel systems to solve the toughest problems in aviation and autonomy

Requirements:

Degree in Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics Engineering, or a related subject
Professional experience developing software for airborne autonomous systems
Subject matter expert in one or more of the following: Sensor modalities including EO/IR cameras, radar, LIDAR, GPS/INS, ADS-B, and more
State estimation and Kalman filtering or similar techniques
Perception techniques including detection, classification, and automatic target recognition
Multi-sensor and multi-modal fusion
Alternative PNT for GPS-denied environments
World model and common operating picture representations
Experience providing tech leadership to a team of at least 4 engineers at different levels
Proficiency in modern software development workflows and practices, including version control, pipelines, and unit testing, and peer review
Experience with overall product development cycle, including design, testing, and troubleshooting at the system level as well as at the software component level
Proficiency writing both Python and C++
Familiarity with simulation software, especially aircraft simulation
Experience with proposal writing and technical roadmap development

Nice to have:

Experience with perception systems for aircraft or other high reliability safety-critical environments
Experience with ROS, DDS, or similar middleware for robotics/autonomy systems
Experience with government open architectures such as A-GRA, OMS and FACE
Experience developing and/or using modern avionics systems
Experience with hardware and software integration and debugging
Experience with flight testing (uncrewed or crewed aircraft)
Awareness of aviation certification standards such as DO-178
Pilot license and flight experience is a plus

What we offer:

Catered lunches
Snacks
Beverages including coffee and tea
Health insurance
Dental insurance
Life insurance
Unlimited vacation
401k with match

Additional Information:

Job Posted:
December 10, 2025

Employment Type:

Fulltime

Work Type:

Hybrid work

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Mission Autonomy- Situational Awareness Lead