Saab Inc.'s Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (AAI) group is seeking a Senior Simulation and Autonomy Software Engineer. As Senior Simulation and Autonomy Software Engineer, you will be responsible for leading the development of a modular and multipurpose simulation software stack to support the development and testing of autonomy and artificial intelligence capabilities for multi-domain unmanned vehicles, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

As the Senior Simulation Engineer, you will be directly contributing toward progressing Saab Inc's forward-looking vision in AI/ML/Autonomy. In this role you will have the opportunity to work on a diverse set of simulation and integration challenges, such as digital twins of maritime and aerial vehicle and environment modeling, simulated sensor development, maintaining a custom 3D Unreal-based simulation system. You will work with a strong team of scientists, engineers to help drive critical autonomy architecture decisions by leveraging our simulation pipeline and to continuously improve the Sim-to-Real gap and latency.

Additional responsibilities include working closely with senior leadership in writing high quality proposals in response to government agency announcements. Translating customers; needs into company priorities is important: this means supporting the Customer Success, Business Development, and Sales teams closely, working hand-in-hand with Operations and Engineering to deliver results.

While this is a remote position you must be able/willing to visit our university partners in the Mid-West (Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio) and East coast (Boston, Rhode Island, Syracuse) regions as necessary to support in-person milestone updates to our external customers but also to maintain continuity of effort and interactions. Some travel to our San Diego office is also expected.

This position is a perfect match for a Modeling and Simulation (M&S) engineer/developer who is passionate about the unlimited potential of AI and ML for solving real world multi-domain problems through extensive use of realistic modeling and simulation tools.To be successful in this role, you are a leader, innovator, builder, team player, and mission focused. You have a research-to-product mindset. You will be cross-functional. You are empathetic, curious and incredibly detail-oriented and organized. You read documentation thoroughly and are comfortable asking questions and seeking help. You are an independent worker and critical analytical thinker.

Responsibilities:

• Be the resident expert and lead all Modeling and Simulation activity to assist/accelerate the development of ML solutions for a variety of multi-domain Autonomous system applications.

• Be responsible for the continuous development and maintenance of all simulation infrastructure and software.

• Continuously improve and monitor the reliability, performance, and usability of simulation software through testing against Sim-to-Real metrics that include objectives for improving transfer, accuracy, latency and training data needs.

• Develop novel simulation models/methods and testing infrastructure to further advance the field of developing realism in digital twins for accelerating the training and development of autonomous systems for reliable deployment.

• Develop an automated closed loop training and simulation pipeline that can continuously train/evaluate autonomous systems in shadow mode and provide insights into model performance, data gaps and shift/uncertainty detection.

• Stay informed and be up-to-speed on all relevant trends, advancements, and breakthroughs in the areas of Sim2real and Real2Sim, Photoreal simulations.

• Work in a highly collaborative team environment including with external industry and university partners to collaboratively develop state-of-the-art visualization and simulation tools.

• Use software engineering best practices to develop high quality, well-documented, and reliable software. Identify, manage, communicate, and solve technical problems/roadblocks.

• Plan, organize, and estimate required efforts for responsible tasks, including possibly developing work plans and Basis of Estimates (BOEs) for future and proposed efforts.

• Lead the technology transfer of research results to Saab Inc's internal applied engineering teams and assist in productionizing in a co-development mode.

• In collaboration with the various engineering functions and product SMEs within Saab Inc, identify applications and uses case that can benefit from M&S capabilities.

• Support all internal strategic planning and operations reviews including postmortems and lessons learnt. Support PI's with milestone reviews with internal and external customers.

• Mentor/train cross domain engineers and assist with learning and knowledge share related to M&S usage and development within Saab Inc.

• Socialize key milestones with industry, academia, and government through conference presentations, technical paper publications, and media relations.

Compensation Range: $137,700-$179,000

The compensation range provided is a general guideline. When extending an offer, Saab, Inc. considers factors including (but not limited to) the role and associated responsibilities, location, and market and business considerations, as well as the candidate's work experience, key skills, and education/training.

Required Skills/Experience:

• BS/MS degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or similar degree (or equivalent practical experience). Demonstrated experience via Git, website or publications is highly desirable. Experience i s highly valued.

• Proficient in C/C /Python software development.

• Comfortable working cross-platform (Windows and Linux) software development environments.

• Experience with development with Unreal Engine (preferred), Unity, OGRE, or equivalent high fidelity 3d visual rendering frameworks.

• Experience with computer aided design and 3d modeling tools related to simulation modeling, such as Blender (preferred), Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max.

• Experience designing or working with multi domain (maritime, aerial) dynamics models in Simulink (Mathworks), ROS / Gazebo, or other aerospace / maritime simulation tools.

• Must exhibit leadership for executing practical application of engineering processes on a development program and maintaining engineering rigor while balancing cost, technical, and schedule.

• Experience with mission analysis, customization, and development of product, managing project risk, deployment of product, user training program management, customer support, and product sustainment and maintenance.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills with a proven ability to communicate well with peers and different levels of management and the customer.

• Willingness to interface on an interdepartmental level and be an agent of change for product modernization via practical and strategic adoption of emergent AI/ML technologies.

• Ability to travel occasionally to support internal and external collaboration meetings and customer demonstrations.

• Ability to work both independently and within a highly collaborative team environment.

• Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to build effective working relationships is a must, especially across government and industry.

• Strong work ethic and self-motivate and pro-active in seeking out the best solution/s.

• Strong technical leadership with a research-to-product mindset, including experience leading teams of senior researchers and engineers.

Desired Skills/Experience:

• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and/or containerized application development.

• Broad simulation, dynamics, geographic information systems (GIS), and geometry library integration experience such as Bullet, NVIDIA PhysX, ODE, GDAL, Simbody, Omniverse, AI2-THOR, etc.

• Experience with simulation environments for training and testing autonomous systems, such as Gazebo, AirSim, or PX4 SITL.

• Familiarity or prior experience with technologies and algorithms related to robotics and autonomy, such as path planning, task allocation, multi-agent systems, distributed computing, networking, controls, computational geometry.

• Prior experience with robotics and autonomy software and simulation frameworks such as ROS, Gazebo, AirSim, HoloOcean, Mathworks/Simulink.

• Knowledge/awareness of concepts like differentiable rendering and PBR/T.

• Familiarity or prior experience with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and/or deep learning technologies and algorithms

• Familiarity or prior experience with unmanned systems such as UAS/UAVs, UUVs, USVs (particularly UAVs) and related software technologies, APIs, and platforms.

• Knowledge of topics related to unmanned and autonomous platforms such as intelligent control and decision making, battlefield management, multi-agent collaboration, and/or autonomous and unmanned systems.

• Strong mathematical reasoning skills, especially with probability and linear algebra

• Familiarity with perception technologies and applications

• Experience with sensor data processing software libraries such as OpenCV and PCL

• Experience with algorithms for environment detection.

• Familiarity with machine learning concepts, tools for computer vision, and object recognition

• Direct experience working with both the U.S. Navy, to lead strategy and operations activities, as well as in the DoD contracting industry.

Status requirements

• Must be a U.S. Citizen and hold or be able to hold a U.S. DoD Secret clearance.

Citizenship Requirements:

Must be a U.S. citizen. Applicants selected may be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

Drug-Free Workplaces:

Saab is a federal government contractor and adheres to policies and programs necessary for sustaining drug-free workplaces. As a condition of employment, candidates will be required to pass a pre-employment drug screen.

Saab provides an excellent working environment offering professional growth opportunities, competitive wages, work-life balance, business-casual atmosphere and comprehensive benefits:

• Medical, vision and dental insurance for employees and dependents

• Paid time off including: minimum of 3 weeks vacation, 5 floating holidays, 8 designated holidays, parental leave, personal illness, bereavement, jury duty, long-term and short-term disability

• 401(k) with immediate vesting on employer match

• Tuition assistance

• Student loan assistance

• Wellness account, Care.com subscription and employee assistance programs

• Employee stock purchase program with employer match

Saab is a leading defense and security company with an enduring mission, to help nations keep their people and society safe. Empowered by its 19,000 talented people, Saab constantly pushes the boundaries of technology to create a safer, more sustainable and more equitable world. In the U.S., Saab delivers advanced technology and systems, supporting the U.S. Armed Forces and the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as international and commercial partners. Headquartered in Syracuse, New York, the company has business units and local employees in eight U.S. locations.

Saab is a company where we see diversity as an asset and offer unlimited opportunities for advancing in your career. We are also a company that respects each person's needs and encourage employees to lead a balanced, rewarding life beyond work. Saab values diversity and is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply and will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran, disability status, or any other federal, state, or locally protected category.