Autonomy Engineer, Navigation & Sensing

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.

About this Role:

We are seeking a Navigation & Sensing Engineer to join our Autonomy engineering team to advance the positioning, guidance, and multi-sensor fusion capabilities of our UAVs and public safety products. You will design, implement, and optimize real-time navigation algorithms that deliver accurate, resilient localization across GPS-challenged and adversarial environments. In this role, you will work across GNSS, inertial navigation, multi-sensor fusion, timing and observability pipelines, and robust state estimation systems, collaborating closely with autonomy, software, controls, and hardware teams to bring next-generation navigation solutions into production UAV platforms.

Key Responsibilities:

• Research, design, and implement state estimation algorithms, including advanced GNSS/INS fusion, and robust filtering approaches.

• Develop high-reliability navigation pipelines integrating GNSS, IMUs/inertial sensors, magnetometers, barometers, LiDAR, Radar, and other sensing modalities.

• Build algorithms and tooling for GNSS integrity monitoring, spoofing/jamming detection, signal quality assessment, and fallback/contingency navigation behaviors.

• Develop calibration, synchronization, and observability pipelines for multi-sensor UAV systems, ensuring consistency and long-term reliability.

• Implement and optimize real-time navigation algorithms on embedded processors, focusing on determinism, computational efficiency, and fault tolerance.

• Validate navigation performance through simulation, log replay, hardware-in-the-loop, and real-world flight testing in a variety of GPS conditions.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration with autonomy, controls, avionics, mechanical, and firmware systems.

• Contribute to technical strategy, define best practices, and help guide the evolution of the navigation and sensing stack as systems scale and mature.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD in Computer Science, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, or a related field with a minimum of 3+ years of industry experience. Note - we are considering candidates for mid-career, senior, and principal positions.

• Strong programming skills in C++ and Python, with experience building real-time systems.

• Experience developing navigation or state estimation systems for robotics or UAVs, with a foundation in GNSS, INS, and/or multi-sensor fusion.

• Proficiency with GNSS technologies, including RTK, PPP, differential corrections, and modern signal types (L1/L2/L5, multi-constellation GNSS).

• Familiarity with implementing real-time estimation pipelines on embedded systems or low-latency compute platforms.

• Hands-on experience with UAV or robotics testing, including sensor characterization, data collection, and field validation.

Preferred Skills:

• Strong expertise in GNSS, including carrier-phase RTK/PPP, integer ambiguity resolution, and multi-constellation/multi-frequency operation.

• Experience with tightly/deeply coupled GNSS–INS fusion and robust error-state filtering.

• Hands-on work with moving-base GNSS, dual-antenna heading, and dynamic baseline calibration.

• Knowledge of GNSS resilience: spoofing/jamming detection, integrity monitoring, and multipath mitigation.

• Familiarity with complementary navigation methods (UWB, radar altimetry, visual-inertial fusion, etc.).

• Solid understanding of sensor timing, synchronization, and observability.

• Background in UAV reliability, redundancy, and autonomous flight considerations.

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

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)