Orca AI
Orca AI
Orca AI develops artificial intelligence and computer vision systems for the maritime, transport, and logistics industries. Its SeaPod and FleetView products support autonomous shipping by improving crew situational awareness, automating lookout functions, and delivering real-time operational insights. The company focuses on helping shipping operators make safer navigational decisions, improve efficiency, and advance more sustainable maritime operations.

Principal Autonomy Engineer – Orca AI, Israel (Hybrid)

Lead the architecture of autonomous navigation for Orca AI Defense’s unmanned surface vessels. Own safety-critical robotics software, technical direction, and the growth of the autonomy team.

Description

  • Own the complete autonomous navigation stack across the World Model, planning, decision-making, and vehicle interface
  • Establish and maintain the World Model Contract, covering representation, uncertainty, timing, synchronization, coordinate frames, confidence, and degradation modes
  • Establish and maintain the Vehicle Interface Contract, including command semantics, platform guarantees, latency, failure behavior, and cross-platform abstraction
  • Determine the autonomy-brain architecture, including module boundaries, behavior design, arbitration, state ownership, and data flow
  • Design the safety and fail-safe architecture, including degradation levels, safe-state transitions, operator intervention, and fault containment
  • Develop and maintain the most technically demanding planning and decision-making software
  • Define the technical direction for the autonomy group
  • Lead technical recruitment as the group expands
  • Develop an autonomous navigation product for an unmanned surface vessel operating at sea

Requirements

  • At least eight years of experience developing autonomous systems
  • Experience designing a complete autonomy stack for unstructured, real-world operating environments
  • Extensive hands-on software development experience on autonomous edge platforms
  • Demonstrated ownership of system-level interface contracts linking perception, autonomy, and platform layers
  • Strong proficiency with ROS2 or comparable real-time robotics middleware
  • Advanced proficiency in modern C++
  • Understanding of embedded-computing limitations
  • Ability to preserve architectural consistency within a small team facing an aggressive delivery schedule
  • Strong systems-engineering judgment applied to autonomy stacks
  • Demonstrated technical leadership, including setting direction, assigning ownership, reviewing work, and developing engineers
  • Maritime, USV, or naval-systems experience; COLREGs familiarity is a plus
  • Experience delivering UAV, UGV, or automotive autonomy within a defense or regulated program is a plus
  • Experience defining acceptance criteria and supporting evidence for a government customer is a plus
  • Experience with simulation, SIL, and scenario-based validation infrastructure is a plus

Benefits

  • Principal-level role with direct ownership of technical direction
  • Opportunity to lead technical recruitment and grow the autonomy team
  • Chance to architect an autonomous navigation product from the ground up and see it operate at sea
  • Work with a small, high-impact team advancing autonomy and robotics

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