Senior Director of Engineering, Anduril Industries

Mission Autonomy

$260-390k

+ Equity

Expert level
Los Angeles

Office located in Costa Mesa, CA

Anduril Industries

Hardware and software for national security

Open for applications

Anduril Industries

Hardware and software for national security

1001+ employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceSecurityEnterpriseDronesAerospace

Open for applications

$260-390k

+ Equity

Expert level
Los Angeles

Office located in Costa Mesa, CA

1001+ employees

B2BArtificial IntelligenceSecurityEnterpriseDronesAerospace

Company mission

To defend against America's national security challenges to create a safer future for the nation.

Role

Who you are

  • The ideal candidate has proven experience leading complex autonomous vehicle software system development at scale
  • In order to be successful at Anduril, our engineering leaders need to be fluent in problem analysis, systems design, and rapid development
  • You must demonstrate a history of successfully coordinating large teams of engineers working on many different lives of efforts against complex demanding schedules and disparate contract obligations
  • BS/MS in Computer Science or a related field or equivalent experience
  • Significant experience leading cross discipline software engineering teams executing across many disparate lines of effort in highly regulated industries
  • Demonstrated experience as a principal level individual contributor working with high performing software engineering teams
  • Proven experience establishing and maintaining trust with customers working in highly regulated, high stakes business environments
  • Strong ability to synthesize customer objectives into engineering outcomes
  • Ability to work in a functional matrix organization
  • Designed → Built → Delivered experience
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a DOD Top Secret clearance

Desirable

  • Experience supporting software development and acquisition within the United States Intelligence Community or Department of Defense
  • Experience building embedded software for autonomous robotic systems
  • Experience building and operating globally distributed eventually consistent networked software systems
  • Willingness to travel frequently
  • A deep interest in joint war fighting strategy and tactics, especially within the air domain

What the job involves

  • We are seeking a Senior Director of Engineering that will be responsible for management of the Mission Autonomy business line within Air Dominance and Strike
  • This business line is responsible for the development, delivery, and sustained operations of Anduril’s autonomy software that runs onboard robotic air vehicles and enables collaborative mission execution
  • As General Manager of the Mission Autonomy business line you are directly responsible for it’s success
  • You will manage financial performance, define strategy, work closely with partners in Anduril’s Growth team to shape, capture, and expand a rapidly growing portfolio of national security contracts
  • You will directly manage a team of Program Managers and Chief Engineers responsible for successful execution across a portfolio of contracts and will collaborate closely with Anduril’s product management organization to inform the Lattice technology development roadmap
  • Define the scope of Anduril’s mission autonomy solution and the go-to-market strategy that will ensure continued rapid growth of the Mission Autonomy business line
  • Directly support the Growth and Proposal team during contract shaping, capture, and expansion
  • Direct all engineering activities to include team building, execution, process, and technical oversight
  • Manage the financial performance of the business line relative to annual and quarterly forecasts and commitments
  • Design and build a Lattice based software capability that enables high performance autonomy on many different vehicles (first and third party) in many different domains (space, air, surface, sea) from first principles to integrated and operational capability
  • Work with our product management and business development teams to distill representative mission use cases that customers understand and that engineers can use to inform backlog prioritization
  • Prioritize and develop clear engineering strategies and accompanied resource plans. Anduril’s growth outpaces our ability to staff the organization. Effective resource allocation is critical to successful execution
  • Support and field autonomous weapons systems in a hands-on fashion

Our take

Anduril makes hardware and software for defense agencies including the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. Its hardware products include specialist drones with a long flight time and surveillance towers.

This hardware is tied together by proprietary software, the Lattice platform, which uses sensor fusion, machine learning, and mesh networking to integrate real-time data from Anduril hardware and third-party systems into a single, autonomous operating picture. While the hardware observes and detects, the software can make decisions as to the threat level of any anomalies, and so allow for observation and protection of an area or building with minimal manpower.

Anduril closed a Series E funding round in 2022 led by Valor Equity Partners. This funding was used for research and development of its autonomous defense products, such as the Roadrunner, a modular twin-jet powered autonomous vehicle that can take off and land vertically. Variants of the Roadrunner include defensive warhead armed interceptors which are the first drone weapons that can be retrieved after deployment. The company has also expanded to Australia where it is working in tandem with the Australian Defence Force to improve its military technology and infrastructure and is recruiting talent worldwide to support its rapidly growing portfolio of defense projects.

Freddie headshot

Freddie

Company Specialist

Insights

Top investors

Few candidates hear
back within 2 weeks

68% employee growth in 12 months

Company

Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)

Jun 2024

$1.5bn

SERIES F

Dec 2022

$1.5bn

SERIES E

Total funding: $3.7bn

Company benefits

  • Full Family Health Coverage
  • 16 Weeks Paid Parental Leave for All Caregivers
  • Family Planning & Support
  • Incentivized Time Off
  • Mental Health Resources
  • Financial Planning
  • Unlimited Provisions
  • Professional Development

Company HQ

Irvine Business Complex, Irvine, CA

Leadership

Brian Schimpf

(Co-founder & CEO)

Having studied at Cornell, they joined Palantir as an Engineer in 2007. They left after over 9 years in order to co-found Anduril in July 2017 as CEO.

Palmer Luckey

(Co-founder)

They founded Oculus VR in April 2012, where they worked until April 2017 when they co-founded Anduril.

Trae Stephens

(Co-founder)

Former Lead Data Analyst at LexisNexis for 2 years, prior to spending 5 at Palantir. They joined Founders Fund as a Partner in 2014, and co-founded Anduril in 2017.

Matt Grimm

(Co-founder & COO)

Studied Engineering at Cornell before working as a Booz Allen Hamilton Consultant and spending over 6 years at Palantir as a Forward Deployed Engineer. They worked at Mithril Capital Management and Classy.org before co-founding Anduril in 2017.

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