The posting
Skyways designs, builds, and operates fully autonomous long range cargo aircraft. Founded in 2017, the company has spent nearly a decade developing and deploying autonomous logistics systems for real world operations.
Our V2 aircraft carries 30 lbs up to 500 miles, and V3 has a maximum range of well over 1,000 miles, a maximum useful load of 100 lbs, and a maximum endurance of nearly 20 hours. Both use a hybrid electric architecture that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like a plane, enabling long range autonomous delivery without traditional runway infrastructure.
Today, Skyways aircraft fly revenue missions for commercial customers across three continents. We are scaling full rate production and building toward large fleets of autonomous cargo aircraft.
Backed by Y Combinator and a $37M AFWERX STRATFI award from the U.S. Air Force, Skyways is creating a new form of transportation to advance our civilization from Austin, Texas.
The Opportunity
This role owns some of the hardest perception problems in autonomous flight.
You will develop computer vision systems for autonomous landing, targetless landing zone evaluation, and perception-driven navigation in real operating environments. Your work will directly impact how aircraft identify safe landing areas, operate in degraded environments, and complete missions reliably without prepared infrastructure.
You will work across perception, sensor fusion, and flight systems to improve how aircraft understand terrain, obstacles, and environmental conditions during autonomous operations.
The ideal candidate has experience deploying perception systems on real robotic, automotive, or aerial platforms and understands the challenges of reliability, integration, and operational performance at system level.
You will work closely with autonomy, GNC, and flight operations teams to take systems from development through flight testing and operational deployment.
What You'll Do:
- Develop and deploy computer vision systems for autonomous landing and landing zone evaluation
- Build perception systems for targetless landing in unstructured and dynamic environments
- Mentor junior perception engineers and raise the quality bar for how perception systems are designed, tested, and deployed
- Develop algorithms for terrain understanding, obstacle detection, and environment classification
- Work with onboard camera, IMU, GPS, and other sensor data in real flight environments
- Improve system performance using operational flight data, testing, and iteration
- Collaborate across autonomy, GNC, and flight operations teams to integrate perception into flight behaviors
- Debug perception and autonomy issues observed during simulation, ground testing, and flight operations
- Contribute to software architecture, testing, integration, and deployment workflows
What You'll Bring:
- 5+ years of experience developing and deploying computer vision or perception systems in real-world environments
- Strong proficiency in C++ and Python
- Experience with perception systems for robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, or aerospace platforms
- Experience working with real sensor data and operational deployment constraints
- Strong understanding of camera systems, sensor fusion, and state estimation concepts
- Experience debugging and improving deployed perception systems using logs, telemetry, or flight data
- Ability to operate effectively in fast-moving engineering environments
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
Bonus Points If You Have:
- Experience with autonomous aircraft or aerial robotics
- Experience with landing zone evaluation, terrain classification, or visual navigation systems
- Background in SLAM, visual odometry, or GPS-denied navigation
- Experience with embedded or real-time systems
- Familiarity with ROS2 or similar robotics frameworks
- Experience deploying perception systems to resource-constrained platforms
In addition to base salary, offers include stock options, so you own part of what you build. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, paid holidays, a 401k, and life insurance.
Relocation assistance is available for candidates moving to Austin.
Want to join our mission? Apply to learn more!
Due to U.S. government contract requirements, this role is limited to U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, or candidates from specific countries authorized under applicable export control regulations.
Skyways is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other factor protected by applicable local, state or federal laws.
