Autonomy Engineer Intern

About the Role

• Contribute to the development of next-generation autonomy algorithms and push them into real products.
• Work on a team with researchers who have pushed the state of the art in academia and industry.
• Assume direct ownership of a project that meaningfully advances the capabilities of the team and products.

Areas Of Responsibility

• Core Simulator Architecture: Design, implement, and evolve the foundational architecture of the Skydio Simulator.
• Physics and Dynamics: Improve and extend physics models governing vehicle motion, interactions with the environment, and dynamic agents.
• Sensor and Hardware Simulation: Build high-fidelity simulations of cameras, IMUs, and other onboard components.
• Autonomy Stack Integration: Run and validate the full Skydio autonomy stack in simulation.
• Feature Development on Top of the Core: Implement simulator capabilities to unlock new workflows.
• Performance and Fidelity: Profile, optimize, and improve simulator performance, pushing realism and accuracy.

What You’ll Do

• Develop core simulator components in C++ and Python, working close to real-time constraints.
• Collaborate with autonomy, perception, and controls engineers to align simulation behavior with real-world systems.
• Debug complex interactions between physics, sensors, autonomy logic, and rendering.
• Help shape the long-term technical direction of the simulator.
• Contribute to documentation and shared understanding of how the simulator works internally.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Strong software engineering experience with C++ and Python.
• Experience building complex systems where performance, determinism, or correctness matter.
• Comfort reasoning about time-synchronized systems, state machines, or real-time execution.
• Ability to work in a large, evolving codebase with multiple stakeholders.
• Interest in robotics, simulation, or physical systems.

Bonus Experience

• Robotics, simulation, game engines, or real-time systems.
• Physics engines, sensor modeling, or hardware abstraction layers.
• Multithreaded or low-latency system design.
• Experience debugging systems that span software and physical behavior.