Skyways

Skyways provides autonomous, long-range, heavy-payload drone solutions for harsh environments, serving the Oil & Gas and Military & Defense industries. Their approach involves embodied AI in flying…

AIAutonomousAviationCargoDefenseDroneseVTOLLogisticsskyways.com

Skyways

AIAutonomousAviationCargoDefenseDroneseVTOLLogisticsskyways.com

HQAustin, US

Team Size57

Open Jobs19

Total Funding$58M

Latest Fundraise11 months ago

Join the Team

Autonomy Lead

On-SiteAustin, TX, US

On-Site • Austin, TX, US

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This role owns how autonomy works in real-world flight
You will define how perception, state estimation, planning, and flight behaviors come together into a system that actually completes missions reliably. This is not about building isolated components. It is about making the full stack work under real constraints
You will shape how our ML systems improve with real-world data and ensure they perform outside of ideal conditions
You will lead a small team while staying hands-on in architecture, implementation, and flight debugging. Your work directly impacts whether aircraft complete missions safely and consistently
Own the end-to-end autonomy system across perception, state estimation, planning, and system behavior
Define system architecture and make tradeoffs across performance, reliability, and complexity
Lead engineers and set technical direction for autonomy development
Work directly in the codebase on critical parts of the stack
Drive integration across GNC, hardware, and mission planning systems
Own how perception and ML models are developed, evaluated, and improved using real-world data
Drive dataset strategy, labeling, and iteration loops to improve system performance
Evaluate model performance in real-world conditions and close gaps between simulation and deployment
Define how autonomy is validated across simulation, ground testing, and flight testing
Debug real-world failures using flight data, logs, and system-level analysis
Identify gaps in the current system and drive changes needed for reliable deployment
Set execution standards for autonomy development and delivery- This is not an entry-level role. We are looking for someone who has already built and deployed autonomy systems on real-world robotic or UAV platforms
You have owned autonomy systems that operated in the real world, not just simulation or research environments
Strong system-level understanding across perception, estimation, and planning, with depth in at least one area
Experience leading engineers and driving technical direction
Experience working with real-world datasets, labeling pipelines, and model iteration cycles
Ability to make practical tradeoffs under real constraints and deliver working systems
Strong proficiency in C++ and Python
Experience taking at least one autonomy system from early development through real-world deployment and iteration
Experience training, evaluating, or improving ML models used in real-world robotic or autonomy systems
Experience working across software, hardware, and flight or field operations
Experience debugging real-world autonomy failures using logs, telemetry, or flight data
Background in robotics, computer vision, or motion planning
Experience with autonomous aircraft or aerial systems
Experience with real-time or embedded systems
Familiarity with ROS2 or similar robotics frameworks
Experience deploying ML models to resource-constrained or real-time systems