Detect And Avoid Lead

Joby Flight Research designs, develops, and flight-tests novel aircraft using a software-first autonomy approach. We build and deploy autonomy, perception, planning, and radar systems across conventional, electric, and hydrogen-electric aircraft in both CTOL and VTOL configurations.

We're building autonomous aircraft, and safely sharing the airspace is non-negotiable. Detect and Avoid (DAA) is how our aircraft sense other traffic — cooperative and non-cooperative — and maneuver to stay well clear and avoid collisions without a pilot in the loop.
This is not a single solution for a single aircraft. We operate multiple aircraft types with different missions and performance envelopes, and they won't all solve DAA the same way: some will carry DAA onboard, some will rely on ground-based DAA, and some will use a mix of both. A core enabler across the portfolio is a radar we are designing and building in-house, developed by our dedicated radar team.
As the DAA Lead, you own the DAA capability across that portfolio — from architecture and sensor strategy, through requirements and certification basis, to the roadmap that gets it flying. You are also the product voice into the radar program, defining what the radar must detect, at what performance, and how we'll prove it. You sit at the intersection of the radar team, autonomy/GNC, systems engineering, safety, flight test, and regulators, and you're accountable for turning a hard technical and regulatory problem into a shipped, certifiable product.

• Own DAA as a portfolio, not a point solution — define a coherent strategy across multiple aircraft types with different missions, performance envelopes, and operating environments, rather than a single design for a single platform.
• Architect across onboard, ground-based, and hybrid DAA — determine which aircraft carry the sensing and avoidance function onboard, which rely on ground-based surveillance and a remote/automated
• Drive commonality and reuse where it pays off — define shared requirements, interfaces, and a common DAA core (tracking, threat assessment, well-clear logic) that deploys across platforms and architectures, while allowing each aircraft to diverge where its mission demands.
• Set per-architecture certification and safety strategies — recognize that onboard, ground-based, and mixed DAA carry different means of compliance, failure modes, and safety arguments, and own a means-of-compliance approach for each.
• Own the DAA product vision and roadmap — define what we build, in what order, and why, balancing safety, certification timeline, cost, and aircraft performance.
• Drive radar requirements across deployment modes — translate DAA-level needs (detection range, field of regard, update rate, track accuracy, target RCS, false-alarm/missed-detection budgets) into clear, testable requirements for the in-house radar team, covering both airborne installations and ground-based surveillance roles, and own those requirements as they evolve.
• Partner closely with the radar team on test and validation — define the radar's acceptance criteria, shape ground and flight test campaigns, encounter geometries, and target sets, and adjudicate performance against DAA needs.
• Lead the broader DAA technical strategy across the full sensing stack (radar plus ADS-B, transponders, EO/IR, acoustic, and fusion) and the avoidance logic (tracking, threat assessment, well-clear definition, maneuver guidance).
• Translate regulatory and standards requirements into engineering requirements — work fluently against frameworks like RTCA DO-365 / DO-366, ASTM F3442 / F3322, SC-228, and the relevant FAA/EASA certification basis for each aircraft class.
• Be the cross-functional connective tissue between the radar team, perception, GNC, systems engineering, safety/SSA, flight test, and regulatory affairs.
• Define and prioritize the backlog — write clear requirements and acceptance criteria, manage trade-offs, and make the call on scope when reality pushes back.
• Drive verification & validation — own how we prove the system works across architectures: simulation, encounter modeling, Monte Carlo / fast-time analysis, HITL, and flight test.
• Engage directly…