At Skyways we are building a new form of air transportation. Some people call it the flying car. We believe fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles represent a unique opportunity to move things and ultimately people in new, more efficient ways. Our strategy to get there is completely different from the rest of the industry.

Skyways is a startup based in Austin, TX. We are backed by some of the most respected investors in Silicon Valley including YCombinator. Although we consider ourselves early-stage, we already have vehicles in production and in the hands of paying customers (see here and here). Come join us and work on a transportation revolution to advance our civilization!

We are growing and looking for a controls engineer to join our team. 

You are excited about things that fly and new fundamental ways to go from A to B. You aren't afraid of tough engineering challenges, that's what gets you up in the morning. 

You are willing to work directly on the aircraft and see your creation take flight (we really mean it!). You are excited about joining a startup, an extremely fast-paced environment where we get things done.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and improve aircraft control laws to meet company objectives (involves writing lots of code)
• Assist flight operations on aircraft configuration and data analysis
• Help build simulation and ground/flight testing capabilities

Within 2 months you will

• Write scripts to analyze data
• Open your first pull request (flight controller or flight computer)
• Participate in flight operations and post-flight data analysis

Within 4 months you will

• Write your own flight test plan
• Support flight operations in flying your test plan/software changes
• Write lots of code to be reviewed by other engineers and start reviewing other people's code
• Identify next actions to continue working towards company goals

Within 8 months you will

• Create flight test plans without supervision
• Perform aircraft anomaly investigation from flight data
• Write and review even more code related to safety-critical parts of the system
• Independently identify your next year’s goal for flight software improvements

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Aero, or Software Engineering
• Must be an awesome and friendly individual
• Bonus points for candidates with a pilot license
• Extra bonus:
• - Open a pull request for me with simulation data attached showing a power-off stall within airman certification standards based on scripted aerobatics from Ardupilot.
• - https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/training_testing/testing/acs/private_airplane_acs_change_1.pdf (Page 42, Take B, Power-Off Stalls)
• - Ardupilot scripted aerobatics: https://github.com/magate/ardupilot/tree/master/libraries/AP_Scripting/applets/Aerobatics/FixedWing#scripted-aerobatics

We are open to hybrid work arrangements, however, there is a strong preference for in-office work in Austin, TX, where the 'birds' are.