Director, Mission Autonomy

Merlin (NASDAQ: MRLN) is a publicly traded aerospace and defense company building a non-human pilot to deliver full-stack autonomy for any aircraft from takeoff to touchdown. The Merlin Pilot autonomy system powers a growing range of aircraft and mission profiles and has been proven through hundreds of autonomous flights from Merlin's global flight test facilities, including Kerikeri, New Zealand;
Smithfield, Rhode Island; and soon, Bedford, Massachusetts. Headquartered in Boston, Merlin is expanding its organization to accelerate the development and deployment of its autonomy platform, helping customers solve some of aviation's most pressing challenges, from pilot shortages to improving flight safety. Backed by some of the world's leading investors prior to its public listing, Merlin continues to advance the certification and commercialization of autonomous flight across commercial and defense aviation.

You are an accomplished and seasoned engineering leader with a strong background in developing, integrating, verifying, and delivering complex embedded software products. You have a proven ability to lead multidisciplinary software engineering organizations, establish rigorous development processes, and consistently deliver reliable, high-quality software into operational environments.

You combine deep software engineering expertise with an understanding of autonomous systems, AI-enabled applications, and the challenges of developing dependable software for safety-critical platforms. You understand how to architect software for modularity, scalability, performance, reliability, and maintainability, while maintaining rigorous standards for software testing, configuration management, and release discipline.

You are a firm believer in the potential of AI to solve some of the toughest problems in the domain you operate in and challenge the status quo by taking AI first approach to developing software solution design.

You have sufficient knowledge of aviation systems and operations to understand the environment in which your products operate, collaborate effectively with aviation domain experts, and make informed engineering decisions.

At Merlin, you will lead the engineering organization responsible for delivering the Mission Management Computer (MMC), the embedded software system that hosts Merlin's artificial airmanship capabilities. You will work closely with Feature Systems Engineering, Core AI, Core Compute, Vehicle Autonomy, and Flight Test to transform advanced autonomy technologies and mission requirements into integrated, production-quality airborne systems.

You are a strong technical and organizational leader who can build high-performing teams, develop engineering managers, establish clear accountability, and execute complex development programs with predictable quality and delivery.

• Mission Management System Delivery: Lead the design, development, integration, verification, and delivery of Merlin's Mission Management Computer software and integrated system, providing the platform for artificial airmanship and mission autonomy capabilities.
• Technical Strategy : Develop a robust roadmap on how Mission Autonomy capabilities can evolve into an even Stronger competitive advantage to the company in mid to long-term.
• Software Architecture: Own the architecture and implementation of mission autonomy application software, including mission management, planning, decision-making, behavior execution, situational awareness, and integration of AI-enabled functionality, consistent with the overall Merlin Pilot system architecture.
• Software Engineering Excellence: Establish and maintain disciplined software development practices, including requirements traceability, design reviews, coding standards, peer review, automated testing, continuous integration, defect management, and configuration control.
• Software Verification and Validation: Own the development and execution of comprehensive software verification strategies, including unit, integration, regression, performance, robustness, and hardware-in-the-loop testing. Ensure software is thoroughly tested and supported by appropriate verification evidence before release.
• Configuration and Release Management: Establish rigorous control of software baselines, dependencies, AI model versions, build environments, release artifacts, and deployed configurations, ensuring reproducible builds and traceability of delivered software.
• Embedded Systems Integration: Partner…