Director of Engineering, Autonomy

About BRINC:

At BRINC, we are redefining public safety with an innovative ecosystem of life-saving tools. Our journey started with the development of drones and ruggedized throw phones, designed to access unsafe areas and establish communication to de-escalate situations. Today, we've expanded into creating and deploying 911 response networks, where drones are dispatched to 911 calls to provide real-time visual data, enhancing safety and enabling de-escalation-focused responses. Our cutting-edge solutions are utilized by over 600 public safety agencies across America and the company has raised over $150M from investors, including Index Ventures, Motorola Solutions, Sam Altman, Dylan Field, Mike Volpe, Alexandr Wang and more. At BRINC, we are committed to recruiting the world's best talent to join us in our mission to support first responders in saving lives. We are currently seeking skilled embedded software engineers to develop flight-critical firmware, with a focus on advanced drone pilot assistance features.

About this Role:

We are seeking a hands-on Director of Engineering, Autonomy to lead and directly contribute to the development of our next-generation autonomy, navigation, perception, and control systems for UAVs and public safety products. You will own the technical direction, architecture, and execution of the autonomy stack while writing code, prototyping algorithms, conducting reviews, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with the engineering team. This role requires deep technical expertise and the ability to guide engineers through critical design decisions, building high-reliability algorithms for localization, mapping, guidance, control, and intelligent mission behaviors. You will lead by doing, delivering production-grade autonomy on embedded robotic platforms, ensuring the system delivers for our customers in the real world.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the technical direction, architecture, and execution of the autonomy stack, including perception, navigation, controls, and mission logic.

• Contribute directly to algorithm design, implementation, prototyping, debugging, and optimization on embedded robotic platforms.

• Oversee planning and delivery of autonomy features and releases, ensuring high-quality execution and alignment with product and mission needs.

• Work side-by-side with engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and hands-on technical contributions.

• Mentor engineers and technical leads, promoting strong engineering fundamentals, autonomy domain expertise, and continuous improvement.

• Establish and uphold best practices in autonomy development, including coding standards, testing, simulation workflows, documentation, and validation processes.

• Build and refine simulation, HIL, and field-testing pipelines to ensure reliability, robustness, and real-world performance.

• Stay current with emerging autonomy technologies and evaluate their applicability to the product roadmap.

• Collaborate closely with software, embedded, hardware, product, and operations teams to integrate autonomy capabilities into complete UAV systems.

• Communicate technical risks, progress, and decisions to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Robotics, Computer Science, Aerospace, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.

• 8–10+ years of experience developing autonomy, robotics, or real-time software systems, with 3–5+ years in a technical leadership role.

• Proven track record of delivering complex autonomy or robotics systems end-to-end.

• Strong proficiency in C++ and Python, with experience writing and reviewing high-quality, real-time production code.

• Deep technical strength in at least one autonomy domain (e.g., SLAM/VIO, GNSS/INS fusion, planning/guidance, controls, etc.).

• Strong understanding of software development methodologies, testing practices, and tooling for high-reliability embedded systems.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor engineers while remaining hands-on in design, implementation, debugging, and technical decision-making.

• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, capable of diagnosing complex system-level issues across compute, sensing, and control.

• Strong project leadership skills, with the ability to prioritize, drive execution, and manage multiple technical threads.

• Clear verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both engineering and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• Expertise spanning multiple autonomy domains, enabling effective architectural leadership across the full stack.

• Experience designing and optimizing end-to-end autonomy pipelines for embedded UAS platforms.

• Background in robust or fault-tolerant autonomy, redundancy, or safety-critical systems.

• Familiarity with real-time systems, performance tuning, and deterministic behavior on embedded hardware.

• Knowledge of UAV reliability, flight safety, and operational requirements.

• Experience with ROS, PX4, MAVSDK, or similar robotics middleware.

• Ability to mentor senior engineers, elevate code quality, and drive architectural clarity through hands-on contribution.

BRINC Culture Values:

• Try the hard stuff

• Be innovative - Invent the future

• Move fast

• Listen to end-users

• Strive for excellence

• Don’t build a dystopia

• Be frugal

• Save lives through technology

If you’re interested in this role and in joining BRINC, we hope you’ll apply. We’d love to review your application and get to know more about you!

BRINC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that is resolute in cultivating an environment that promotes safety, diversity, inclusion and equity. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering every employee so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need, please let our recruiting team know - we strive to provide appropriate accommodation and assistance.

Benefits and perks listed below may vary based on the nature of your employment with BRINC and/or the country within which you work

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans for our employees and their families

• 401K plan

• Maternity and paternity leave

• Flexible Time Off (Exempt) / Paid time off (Non-Exempt)

• Flexible work environment

• Orca pass (for those in Puget Sound)

• Free parking (Seattle office)

• Free snacks, drinks and espresso (Seattle office)

Compensation Range: $185K - $308K