Senior Autonomy Software Engineer

Date Posted:

2025-10-27

Country:

United States of America

Location:

HVA34: Sterling, VA 22640 Davis Dr , Sterling, VA, 20164-7104 USA

Position Role Type:

Hybrid

U.S. Citizen, U.S. Person, or Immigration Status Requirements:

U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are authorized to access information under this program/contract.

Security Clearance:

None/Not Required

Collins Aerospace, an RTX company, is a leader in technologically advanced and intelligent solutions for the global aerospace and defense industry. Collins Aerospace has the capabilities, comprehensive portfolio, and expertise to solve customers’ toughest challenges and to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving global market.

The Collaborative Mission Autonomy (CMA) department within Collins Mission Systems is seeking a dynamic Software Engineer to support our Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Guidance Navigation Control (GNC) and CMA business area. The successful candidate will have a passion for innovation and the drive to develop and mature mission-enabling autonomy capabilities for UAS.

In this role you will be responsible for development, integration, and testing of the CMA software and associated hierarchical mission autonomy functionality for coordinated teams of UAS platforms. You will be part of a distributed team composed of professionals from several disciplines (software, systems, hardware, autonomy algorithms, flight controls, etc.).

This position will work onsite located at one of our following locations: Sterling, VA, Ft Wayne, IN, McKinney, TX, Cedar Rapids, IA or El Segundo, CA.

What You Will do:

• Deployment and test of software builds to the real system hardware (embedded Linux systems)

• Initial integration of hardware and software elements, including troubleshooting networking and system configuration, including various IP-stack protocols, serial communications, RF communications, GPS, Linux, network router and switch management

• Systems Integration and debugging experience (bash scripting, Python scripting, debugging, using oscilloscopes/volt meters/etc., and so forth)

• Integration lab management and network architecture

• Leading and coordinating small teams, including technical aspects as well as program cost and schedule.

• Support on-site integration at customer and 3rd party facilities

• This position may require occasional travel (up to 10%). 

Qualifications You Must Have

• Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) and minimum 5 years prior relevant experience or an Advanced Degree in a related field and minimum 3 years of experience

• The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.

• Experience with one or more build tools / IDEs (e.g. CMake, make, Visual Studio, VS Code, etc.)

• Experience using development workflow tools such as JIRA, Git, Subversion, Docker, and requirements management applications.

• Object Oriented programing languages with C++ or Java.

Qualifications We Prefer

• Experience leading teams.

• Familiarity with DevSecOps tools and techniques, server management is a plus

• Experience with containers, virtualization, simulation

• HMI / GUI development

• Understanding of DoD open systems architecture and protocols (FACE, JCA, HOST, OMS, SOSA)

• Background in the following technologies is helpful but not required:

  • UAS Command and Control Systems

  • Autonomy Algorithms

  • Detect and Avoid

  • Guidance and Navigation

  • Flight Management Systems

  • Sensor Fusion / Sensor Systems

  • Weapons Systems

  • Human / machine interface

  • Information Assurance

Collins Aerospace, an RTX company, is a leader in technologically advanced and intelligent solutions for the global aerospace and defense industry. Collins Aerospace has the capabilities, comprehensive portfolio, and expertise to solve customers’ toughest challenges and to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving global market.

Do you want to be a part of something bigger? A team whose impact stretches across the world, and even beyond? At Collins Aerospace, our Mission Systems team helps civilian, military and government customers complete their most complex missions — whatever and wherever they may be. Our customers depend on us for intelligent and secure commu