Senior Software Engineer - Autonomous Systems

Overview

Title of Role: Senior Software Engineer – Autonomous Systems

Location: Seattle, WA

Company Stage of Funding: Public Company

Office Type: Hybrid (2–3 days onsite per week)

Salary: $145,000 – $275,000 base + bonus + equity

Our client is a well-established, publicly traded technology company building mission-critical software platforms used by organizations operating in high-impact, real-world environments. Their work sits at the intersection of advanced software engineering, autonomous systems, and applied AI—solving complex problems where reliability, speed, and precision truly matter.

They are forming a new, highly focused engineering team in Seattle to work on next-generation autonomous systems with real-world deployment and immediate impact.

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Autonomous Systems team, you will play a key role in designing and building intelligent, real-time systems that integrate sensing, decision-making, and actuation.

You’ll work in a fast-moving, experimental environment where engineers have a high degree of ownership and autonomy.

Key responsibilities include:

• Design, build, and optimize software for mission-critical autonomous systems
• Develop real-time systems that ingest and reason over data from multiple sensor types (e.g., vision, radar, RF, audio)
• Build intelligent decision-making systems capable of evaluating threats and triggering appropriate responses
• Integrate software with sensors, effectors, and autonomous platforms
• Engineer systems that prioritize reliability, performance, and safety in high-stakes environments
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional partners including hardware engineers, robotics specialists, and AI researchers
• Take ownership of ambiguous problems and drive solutions from concept to deployment

This role offers two natural technical growth paths:

• Systems-focused engineers working close to hardware, sensors, and low-level software
• AI-focused engineers building autonomous decision systems, agents, and multi-step reasoning workflows

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Experience designing or contributing to system architecture for complex software systems
• Comfortable operating in fast-paced, ambiguous environments with minimal oversight
• Experience with autonomous systems, robotics, sensor integration, or real-time systems
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to manage technical complexity
• Experience deploying and supporting production systems

• Strong proficiency in Rust
  , Python
  , C++, or Java
• Background in low-level systems engineering, embedded systems, or robotics
• Experience building AI-driven systems beyond basic model usage (e.g., agents, multi-step workflows, autonomy frameworks)
• Familiarity with multi-modal sensing (computer vision, radar, RF, audio, etc.)
• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field
• Eligibility and willingness to obtain a U.S. security clearance (where required by role responsibilities)

• Base Salary: $145,000 – $275,000 (depending on experience and level)
• Total Compensation: May include bonus, equity, and sign-on incentives
• Employment Type: Full-time
• Work Model: Hybrid (Seattle-based team, 2–3 days onsite)
• Team Growth: Hiring multiple engineers for this team
• Start Timeline: Actively hiring

• Work on real-world autonomous systems with immediate, tangible impact
• Join a newly formed team with high ownership and influence
• Solve technically hard problems that blend software, AI, and physical systems
• Collaborate with experienced engineers in a low-bureaucracy environment
• Build systems that matter—where performance and reliability are mission-critical