Ready to change the world?

We are reinventing how products are delivered around the world by unlocking the path not yet traveled. Our company was founded in 2015 and is backed by Silicon Valley’s most prominent VCs, including YCombinator, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Icon Ventures. Volansi provides fast on-demand aerial delivery service for time-critical shipments over long ranges. We build and operate long-range, high-payload drones for commercial, defense, and humanitarian applications. Leveraging drone technology as a transportation method, we help our customers gain control of their supply chain and save millions of dollars on downtime and inventory costs.

Our work came from the immediate need for critical delivery of parts to drastically reduce downtime for an automotive company. From this idea, our founders have scaled the company into a team of highly skilled and motivated individuals to serve critical delivery markets.

Interested?

We are looking for a VP of Robotics Engineering to lead our robotics hardware and software teams. You will work on the software, avionics and robotics development of Volansi’s unmanned aerial vehicles. In this position you will be leading a vibrant and fast-paced team, and become a key member of the executive team. You’ll play a critical role in structuring the roadmap and bringing innovation to one of the most exciting companies in the industry.

The ideal candidate will have previous experience in the management of mission and safety critical development as well as a strong direct engineering background at some point in their career. They will have a good understanding of software engineering on robotic systems with complex dynamics and functionality, in addition to excellent interpersonal and organizational skills.

What you will do:

• Be responsible for leading technical deep dives and structuring engineering team to help enable an intelligent aerial robot. You will have deep understanding of our technical road map, our customers’ requirements and needs, and a vision for how to achieve our goals over the next 6-12 months
• Lead an outstanding engineering team consisting of software, robotics, controls, firmware, electrical and flight test engineers to realize the autonomous aerial delivery vision of the company
• Perform the design and software work required to bring prototype platforms to reliability levels needed for autonomous flight
• Manage our end-to-end software and hardware development efforts
• Recruit new talent to the team
• Work with other senior leadership in the development of team and company strategy, and the maintenance of company culture
• Set schedules and priorities
• Determine how quantified safety targets break down into requirements for software, firmware, and hardware systems
• Design and build tools needed to monitor and validate that the computing systems on prototype platforms meet safety requirements
• Own the platform/infrastructure software for SARA; architect and implement the embedded software that runs the avionics and control systems of the aircraft, and ensure that sensors and communication peripherals work right
• Work with the EEs to bring up and debug new hardware
• Develop robust bootloaders for updating software on a distributed processor architecture
• Implement drivers in C/C++ and write test scripts to verify them across a variety of operating scenarios
• Support algorithm implementation, system integration, test, and debug
• Identify points of weakness in the software and electronics; help develop plans for improving and robustifying the product

Required:

• Team player without an ego, passionate about aviation, and doing whatever it takes to deliver value
• At least 8 years total experience as either an IC or manager
• Significant leadership of teams in the range of 20-30 people, working in similar fields
• Able to guide the team on component selection, device prototyping and testing
• You’ll need to be hands-on and prepare to write code or debug issues when problems arise, and at the same time manage and lead a growing engineering team
• Excellent communication skills (speaking, writing, briefing)
• Excellent writing and presentation skills
• Excellent people skills to interact with customers, colleagues and third parties
• Experience with (un)manned aircraft systems for commercial and defense applications
• History of individual contribution on hard technical challenges
• Experience with hard real-time system design and operation at the millisecond scale or faster
• Familiarity with modern software development processes and tools (Linux, Git, etc.)
• Experience with architecture design for redundancy and fault tolerance
• Ability to review schematics and read data-sheets; experience supporting hardware bringup and debug

Desired:

• Flying related hobbies and interests such as a private pilot’s license, RC flying, hang gliding, paragliding, etc.
• Knowledge and previous experience with DO-178B/C, including some reflection on where the standard works well
• Experience with a codebase with challenging timing requirements
• Knowledge of flight dynamics and control
• Experience with manned flight test program
• Experience with safety-critical software development
• Experience using, programming for and characterizing performance of commercial RTOS platforms and/or Linux
• Experience doing hardware-in-the-loop testing
• Experience writing embedded drivers and applications
• Scripting and automation in Python
• Developing user facing utility applications
• Experience developing and testing embedded system software for real time applications/robotic systems
• Strong C/C++ microcontroller experience

Why Volansi?

• Comprehensive health benefits for you and your dependent(s)
• Opportunities for internal career growth
• Healthy meals and snacks provided and commuter benefits
• Flexible vacation and company paid holidays
• 401k and stock options
• Dog-friendly office!