Research and Development Director

  • Engineering
  • Littleton
  • Full Time

The R&D Director is responsible for the planning & execution of multi-disciplinary research and development projects. They will lead and develop multi-disciplinary expertise to build Autonomous Systems, defined as autonomous or remotely controlled machines which can perform sensing, understanding, and useful actions in unknown and unstructured environments. Sub-disciplines include computer vision and perception, multi-sensor estimation and control, autonomous planning and decision making, mobility and manipulation, mechatronics design and implementation, and modeling and simulation.

Salary Range: 150k/yr to 170k/yr

Responsibilities

  • Develop multi-disciplinary expertise to build systems defined by autonomous or remotely controlled machines which can perform sensing, understanding, and useful actions in unknown and unstructured environments
  • Identify, downselect, and cultivate technological advancements that benefit end-user missions and meet company needs
  • Recruit, train, coach, mentor, and guide technical talent
  • Lead opportunity assessment and proposal writing for prospective government and academic partnerships
  • Lead technical planning and presentations for customer demonstrations
  • Responsible for conceptualizing, designing, building, testing, and demonstrating robot prototypes, in dynamic simulation, controlled lab settings, hardware/software-in-the-loop simulations
  • Interface between high-level software developers, controls developers, hardware technicians, test engineers, and management team
  • Monitor technical progress, requirements, budget, schedule, deliverables and risks as well as review recommendations for change with program management
  • Responsible for ensuring timely execution of projects, driving them to success, and reporting to management.
  • Develop product roadmaps, including incorporation of technologies, working with internal and external customers to understand how your product integrates to meet current and future mission needs.

Requirements

  • Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or related field
  • Must have three years of experience developing control systems for robotic manipulations and similar electromechanical systems, including trajectory planning, motion control and servo tuning algorithms, load analysis, signal processing, development of dynamic models, simulations in MATLAB/Simulink environment, and implementation of software on real-time systems
  • Must have experience leading and managing a multidisciplinary team to meet performance, schedule, and budget requirements in development projects
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (current Green Card holder)
  • Outstanding communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills
  • Critical thinker and practical problem solver
  • Agile and highly motivated by meaningful patriotic missions for technology applications
  • Excellent organizational and time-management skills

Desired Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

  • Experience with development of perception, planning, navigation, sensor fusion for localization and mapping, machine learning, and autonomy systems such as pin-point and safe landing, space rendezvous, formation flying, precision pointing, autonomous initiation and environmental assessment, machine learning, and related behavior
  • Experience and knowledge of multi-robot architecture and behavior design
  • Defense industry experience; especially in the R&D realm
  • Government grant/contract proposal content generation

Physical Demands

  • Must be able to remain in a stationary position for more than 75% of the time
  • Must be able to travel approximately 10% for government and industry meetings
  • Must be able to occasionally move about inside the office to access equipment and office machinery
  • Must be able to regularly lift and /or move up to 5-pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds
  • Must be able to position oneself to move in a manner required to perform the daily work associated with this role
  • Must be able to operate standard office productivity machinery and equipment including a phone, computer, mouse and keyboard, photocopy machine, scanner and e-fax
  • Daily work environment and noise level is that of a standard office
  • Occasionally you may experience, or be in the vicinity of, outdoor weather conditions at a field test site, although basic shelter from the elements is provided it is not constant, based on the scope of tasks being performed
  • Occasionally you may experience, or be in the vicinity of, a noise level consistent with a warehouse work environment