Controls Engineer - Autonomy
Rethink recruit - El Segundo
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Overview
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Overview
We're excited to be partnering again with Neros , one of the most disruptive defense tech startups in the country, on a critical early hire: an Autonomy Engineer to take ownership of the brain behind their flagship drone platform, Archer .
Neros is building high-performance unmanned systems at startup speed-tested in combat, built at scale, and delivered to the frontlines faster than legacy defense contractors can file a budget request. The company's drone line is already the highest-volume production line in the U.S., and now they're building out the core autonomy stack that controls everything in the air.
This is an opportunity to write software that controls the full autonomy loop-from motion planning and obstacle avoidance to non-linear controls and real-time board-level integration. If you've ever wanted to own the autonomy brain of a drone platform, this is it.
What you'll be doing:
- Lead autonomy software development on Archer , a production UAV platform
- Design and implement real-time obstacle avoidance and motion planning systems
- Build and deploy low-latency control code in C/C++ for embedded systems
- Work closely with hardware teams on board bring-up and end-to-end integration
- Own your work across the full lifecycle-from prototype to field deployment
- 3+ years of experience shipping C/C++ in production environments
- 2+ years leading dynamic motion planning or obstacle avoidance efforts
- Hands-on experience with real-time, non-linear control systems
- Comfort working with hardware-oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.
- A deep sense of ownership and eagerness to move fast
- Electronics or PCB design experience
- Flight control stack familiarity (Betaflight, PX4, Ardupilot)
- Experience with embedded video, wireless systems, or sub-frame latency compression
- Microsoldering skills
This is a founding team role in autonomy-meaning you'll shape not just the system, but the direction of the entire function. You'll see your code flying in the field in a matter of weeks, not years.
If you want to move fast, build real systems, and do work that matters-get in touch.