What are the responsibilities and job description for the Software Engineer - Autonomous Vehicles position at iO Associates?
We're seeking a Software Engineer to join a cutting-edge engineering team developing software for autonomous surface vehicles (USVs) and next-generation marine robotics systems.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working at the intersection of robotics, embedded systems, networking, and real-world autonomy. You'll help build mission-critical software powering autonomous maritime operations in challenging ocean environments.
While robotics experience is a plus, we're primarily looking for strong fundamentals in C/C , embedded and real-time systems, Linux, networking, and system integration.
🌊 What You'll Work On:
* Develop software for vehicle control, navigation, communications, and autonomy
* Build across embedded, real-time, and application layers
* Integrate software with hardware systems and sensors (radar, sonar, GPS, cameras, Starlink, cellular, etc.)
* Support perception, obstacle avoidance, and autonomy capabilities
* Contribute to multi-vehicle and multi-domain operations (surface, subsea, aerial)
* Develop simulation and testing tools for dynamic ocean environments
* Troubleshoot complex software, networking, and hardware issues
* Participate in field testing and sea trials
✅ Required Qualifications:
* US Citizenship
* Bachelor's degree in CS, Engineering, or related field
* 2 years of software engineering experience
* Strong C/C experience, especially in embedded or RTOS environments
* Linux/UNIX experience
* Experience with networking and communications systems (TCP/UDP/IP, CAN, RF, LTE, satellite, serial protocols, etc.)
* Familiarity with build tools such as CMake, gcc/clang, Git, make/ninja
* Strong debugging and systems integration skills
⭐ Nice to Have:
* ROS/ROS2
* Robotics or autonomous systems experience
* Computer vision / sensor processing
* NVIDIA Jetson, CUDA, TensorRT, DeepStream
* Embedded microcontrollers and low-level hardware interfaces
* Wireshark, tcpdump
* Autonomous navigation or path-planning algorithms
* Marine, aerospace, defense, or autonomous vehicle experience
This is an opportunity to work on real-world autonomous systems with direct impact on the future of maritime robotics and ocean operations.