Senior Software Engineer, Mission Perception, Planning, and Operations
Anduril Industries is hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Mission Perception, Planning, and Operations. It pays $220k-$292k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Anduril Industries.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
- The listed pay starts 31% above the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include computer vision, perception pipelines and planning algorithms.
- Level lists 2,500+ other open roles at Anduril Industries.
- The role was posted within the past week.
AI in this role
Build perception pipelines and autonomous planning software for maritime unmanned vehicles.
Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.
ABOUT THE TEAM
Anduril's Maritime Division is transforming American sea power to meet the defining national security challenges of our era and secure our future of maritime dominance.
We are scaling at an historic pace, anchored by Arsenal-2, our new software-defined shipyard being built in Baltimore County, Maryland. It's part of a new $6.6 billion investment in America's submarine industrial base.
Arsenal-2 is purpose-built to break long-standing industrial bottlenecks and scale production of critical components for the Navy's Virginia-class attack submarines to support fleet requirements. At the same time, it will build the industrial muscle to field our next-generation AUVs at scale.
We aren't waiting for the new shipyard to be completed. The work on this transformation starts right now, with development inside our new 160,000 square foot Proto-Factory in Orange County, California, where the team is already laying the foundation. As the prototyping hub for Arsenal-2, this facility gives us a multi-year head start, proving out the advanced manufacturing methods, digital workflows, and quality systems that will scale across our broader shipyard network.
In Anduril's Maritime Division, we are actively building America's next decisive advantage at sea—and this is the moment to join us.
ABOUT THE JOB
You will own the software that lets a maritime autonomous vehicle understand its environment, decide what to do, and carry it out. Reporting to the Mission Systems Lead, you will work across all three: perception pipelines that turn sonar, radar, and EO/IR into situational awareness; planning algorithms that decompose mission objectives into executable plans; and the runtime execution software that manages mission state and handles contingencies when no operator is reachable.
Your spectrum of support will be diverse in nature and require you to leverage your technical expertise as well as leadership skills to set objectives, build cross-functional teams, and rapidly drive to completion. The ability to leverage your intuition and prior experience will be key in making sure the right design, analysis, and test steps are completed to ensure success. The ideal candidate will leverage their experience executing and successfully completing prior highly optimized multi-disciplinary projects.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
- Design and implement sensor processing pipelines for sonar, radar, and EO/IR.
- Build object detection and classification algorithms for maritime environments.
- Develop multi-target tracking systems for real-time situational awareness.
- Integrate platform position and attitude into the context of mission requirements.
- Design and implement mission objective decomposition algorithms.
- Build resource allocation and constraint satisfaction systems for mission planning.
- Develop operator-facing planning interfaces for autonomous maritime missions.
- Design and implement behavior execution software for autonomous maritime missions.
- Build real-time decision-making systems for mission execution.
- Develop contingency handling and failure response logic.
- Manage mission state across complex, multi-phase autonomous operations.
- Integrate mission systems with platform control, perception, and vehicle systems.
- Characterize and improve performance across perception, planning, and execution against operational requirements.
- Support testing and field deployment of mission capabilities.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- 7+ years in autonomous systems software, robotics, perception, or real-time systems.
- Experience building software for field-deployed autonomous systems.
- Depth in at least one of perception, mission planning, or runtime mission execution, with working knowledge of the others.
- Proficiency in real-time software development with stringent timing requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to handle complex state management in production systems.
- Ability to translate operational mission requirements into software requirements.
- Ability to characterize system performance and drive measurable improvements.
- Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Secret security clearance.
- Ability to receive, process, and disposition encrypted data
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Maritime or underwater autonomy experience.
- Sonar or radar signal processing background.
- Experience with behavior frameworks for autonomous systems.
- ROS or equivalent robotics middleware background.
- Experience in planning or scheduling algorithm development for autonomous systems.
- Military C2 software background.
- Defense applications background.
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:
Benefits
At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.
Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams
Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.
To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:
-
No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.
- Please always verify communications:
- Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
- Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.
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Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.
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What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to contact@anduril.com. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.
Data Privacy
To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/.
By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.
How we rate this
Senior Software Engineer, Mission Perception, Planning, and Operations at Anduril Industries rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Pay
- This job starts at
- $220k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 31% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
- Tell me about a project where perception pipelines was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where planning algorithms was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where autonomous systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where robotics was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision, Perception Pipelines, Planning Algorithms, Autonomous Systems, and Robotics. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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