Head of Autonomy, Aerial

Location: Ottawa Office, On-Site

Reports to: Director of Autonomy

Type: Full-Time

The Role

Flying is the easy part. Navigating with GPS jammed, deciding with the link cut, and doing both inside the compute and the seconds an air vehicle actually has is the work. Our systems are in the field with the CAF now, in contested and degraded conditions, and the autonomy has to hold when the mesh drops mid-mission.

You set the technical direction for aerial autonomy at Dominion — perception, navigation, planning, and behaviours for our uncrewed aircraft, single vehicle and in teams. You build on the same autonomy foundation as our maritime and ground systems and integrate with AuraNet, our C2, mesh, and tasking layer, so a new airframe inherits autonomy rather than growing its own. You lead the aerial autonomy team and grow it.

What You'll Do

• Set the aerial autonomy roadmap — capability by capability, airframe by airframe — and turn it into a sequenced technical plan with real milestones.

• Build the onboard autonomy stack: perception and state estimation that survive GNSS denial and EW, and planning that runs inside the vehicle's compute and timing budget.

• Design the behaviour layer — mission execution, contingency management, lost-link behaviour, and hand-back to the operator — so the aircraft does something sensible and predictable when conditions change.

• Build collaborative autonomy across multiple aircraft: tasking, deconfliction, and coordinated behaviour that degrades gracefully as the mesh thins.

• Own the boundary between autonomy and flight control — where GNC ends and autonomy begins — and the interfaces and safety envelope on both sides.

• Integrate with AuraNet for tasking, telemetry, and mesh, designed for bandwidth-constrained and disconnected operation from the start.

• Set the evaluation standard: what a behaviour has to demonstrate in simulation, on a surrogate, and in flight test before it is trusted with a mission, and where deterministic policies belong versus probabilistic ones.

• Hire and lead the aerial autonomy team, and get to the flight line yourself — trials, integration, and operator debriefs, in days not quarters.

What You Bring

• A senior engineering leader who has flown autonomy — uncrewed aircraft that operated in real airspace and real conditions, not only in simulation.

• Depth in the aerial autonomy stack: onboard perception and state estimation, GNSS-denied navigation, real-time planning under compute and latency constraints, and the interface to flight control.

• Experience with multi-vehicle or collaborative autonomy — several aircraft executing a task together, including what happens as comms degrade.

• Experience leading engineers — a team you hired, structured, and set technical direction for, against a roadmap you were accountable for.

• Command of both deterministic policies (the system follows predefined rules consistently) and probabilistic ones (the system decides under uncertainty and changing conditions), and clear judgement about which the mission calls for.

• Flight test discipline: campaigns you planned, surrogate testing, failure analysis, and the evidence that earned trust in a behaviour.

• Based in Ottawa, or ready to relocate — this role is on-site with the team and close to the customer.

Nice to Have

• Autonomy that operated in contested EW conditions, or against a real jamming and spoofing threat.

• Airworthiness or safety-case work for uncrewed aircraft, and defence or dual-use air programs.

• Simulation-in-the-loop and sim-to-real for training and validating autonomy before it flies.

• Manned-unmanned teaming, or work alongside aircrew and UAS operators.

• ROS 2 and embedded autonomy on constrained flight compute.

• Cold-weather and Arctic operations.

No defence background required.

We've hired people who didn't tick every box. If this is the work you want to do, please apply anyway.

Why Join Us

Building something meaningful starts with the right people.

At Dominion Dynamics, you’ll:

• Shape Canada’s future by building real defence capability for the CAF and our allies.

• Make decisions that ship in a high-trust environment with short feedback loops and rapid iteration.

• Move fast, field faster, and work directly with the operator — our systems are in the field with the CAF now.

• Have an impact from day one with equity, responsibility, and direct access to leadership.

If you’re curious, hands-on, and driven by the opportunity to make a difference, this is where you belong!

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive base salary and company equity*

• Comprehensive health benefits

• Additional equity granted based on impact*

We use AI tools to support parts of the hiring process, including screening and reviewing responses. Final hiring decisions are always made by people and follow all applicable privacy and employment laws in Canada.

*Equity awarded to full time employees only.