Principal Autonomy Software Engineer

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with a multi-product portfolio that gives the ultimate advantage—domain dominance. The company's products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised a total of $1 billion in funding from leading investors, including 8VC, Accel, and Valor Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.

Role Overview:

The Autonomy team builds the software brains behind CHAOS Industries’ distributed defense systems, the perception, planning, and coordination layers that let fleets of sensors and effectors operate as one coherent, adaptive network. As Principal Autonomy Software Engineer, you’ll set the technical direction for how our platforms sense, reason, and act in contested, fast-changing environments. You’re the person the rest of engineering looks to when the hardest autonomy problems land on the table, equal parts architect, builder, and force multiplier.

• You’ll partner across hardware, RF/signals, systems, and product to turn sensor data into decisions our operators can trust. We move fast, prototype and then systems that must work when it counts.

• You’ll take principal-level ownership of upcoming autonomy programs, standing up new capabilities from prototype to fielded system and setting the standards the rest of the org builds against.

Responsibilities:

• Own the autonomy software architecture end to end, multi-sensor fusion and world-modeling, mission planning, task allocation, and real-time decision-making across distributed nodes.

• Define the technical strategy and roadmap for autonomy across your products, and drive alignment on hard trade-offs across teams.

• Build and productionize autonomy software that runs reliably on resource-constrained edge hardware in the field, not just in the lab.

• Set and enforce engineering standards for code quality, testing, simulation, and the safety and predictability of autonomous behavior.

• Technically lead and mentor other engineers—raising the bar through design reviews, pairing, and hands-on collaboration rather than hierarchy.

• Translate operational needs from warfighters and operators into robust, testable autonomy requirements.

• Stand up simulation, test, and evaluation pipelines that validate autonomous behavior before it ever reaches the field.

• Primarily an office and lab environment, with travel as needed to test sites, field demonstrations, and other CHAOS offices.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace/Mechanical/Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.

• A deep, hands-on track record designing and shipping autonomy or robotics software (perception, state estimation, planning, control, or multi-agent systems) that has run on real hardware in the field.

• Expert-level proficiency in C++/RUST and Python, with strong command of software design for real-time, safety-critical, or resource-constrained systems.

• Demonstrated ownership of complex systems from concept through deployment, you’ve previously architected something hard and been accountable for it in production.

• Strong foundation in the mathematics of autonomy: probabilistic estimation, sensor fusion, optimization, and/or planning algorithms.

• Hands-on experience with robotics/autonomy frameworks and tooling (e.g., ROS/ROS2, real-time middleware, simulation environments, or other bespoke middleware).

• Comfort working with real-world sensor data (EO/IR, RADAR, RF, LiDAR, GPS/INS) and the messiness of live systems.

• Proven ability to lead technically in cross-functional collaborative environments setting direction, mentoring engineers, and driving cross-team decisions without formal authority.

• Must be a U.S. Person (citizen or lawful permanent resident).

Preferred Requirements:

• Master’s or PhD in a relevant technical field.

• Experience in defense, aerospace, or another mission-critical domain with high reliability requirements.

• Depth in multi-agent coordination, swarming, or distributed autonomy.

• Experience deploying ML or autonomy stacks to embedded, GPU-accelerated, or edge-compute hardware.

• An active U.S. security clearance.

Why CHAOS?

• Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company

• Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more

• Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code

• Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses

• Team Growth: 400 employees and counting across 5 global offices

Salary Range: $246,000 - 339,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

Recruiting Agencies: CHAOS Industries does not accept unsolicited resumes or outreach. Unsolicited submissions will not be reviewed or compensated.

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