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Senior SoftwareRobotics Engineer Navigation & Planning
Job Location:
Job Location:
Burlington - Canada
Yearly Salary:
CAD 153920 - 168480
Yearly Salary:
Posted:
21 October 2026 (15 hours ago)
Posted:
Application Deadline:
18 January 2027
Application Deadline:
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Vacancies:
Job Summary
Thank you for exploring opportunities at Ribbit! We look forward to speaking with you.
Note: the Careers page is under maintenance; actual details and interview process may differ slightly
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Company
Founded in 2020 Ribbit builds and operates autonomous airplanes. We develop technology that enables uncrewed gate-to-gate operations having completed hundreds of autonomous flight hours on different aircraft flown 10K hours in simulation and secured flight authorities for remotely and optionally piloted flight. From defending sovereignty to delivering food and medical supplies we are a trusted partner that businesses and governments rely on to test operate and deploy affordable autonomous aircraft. You can check out our videos here.
We believe that technology should be developed for and with the 2023 we signed our first federal contract with the Government of Canada during which we performed Canadas first autonomous gate-to-gate flight between two airports. Since then we have won several additional contracts including contracts with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Department of National Defence (DND) spanning platform mission and collaborative autonomy. We pride ourselves on knowing the customer better than themselves serving them better than anyone else and ensuring they succeed in a world with everyone else.
This year alone we performed the worlds first demonstration of collaborative teaming between an autonomous airplane and an autonomous helicopter. We also deployed Canadas first optionally piloted aircraft with a military callsign. We are now building novel autonomous aircraft for DND and Canadas allies aligning our immediate defence clients with a backlog of interest across northern wholesalers public safety agencies freight forwarders and humanitarian organizations. Autonomy is reshaping the way we move understand and protect the world.
Our team has years of experience with piloting commercial drone operations and autonomous mobile roboticswere concentrating the worlds best software robotics and aeronautical expertise to pursue our mission of making air transportation accessible to everyone. If youre up for the challenge we want to hear from you.
Position Overview
As a Senior Navigation Engineer you will collaborate with peers to:
- Lead development of the navigation stack: mission and flight planning trajectory generation and the guidance targets passed to the flight controller. You will shape its architecture and roadmap lead design reviews and hold the bar on code quality
- Work with the other navigation engineers to deliver high-quality software scoping the work and keeping design review and release standards consistent
- Stay hands-on: write production C review the hardest changes and prototype new capability
- Represent navigation in design reviews with the state estimation controls interfaces and flight-test teams and mentor the engineers who join the team
- Support flight trials analyse flight data and turn operational and pilot feedback into navigation improvements
Your key objectives will include:
- Developing flight planning for every phase of flight (takeoff departure cruise circuit approach landing loiter search) using standard aviation procedures
- Planning in three dimensions within aircraft performance (turn radius climb and descent rates speed schedules) and constraints such as terrain obstacles and airspace
- Owning global navigation accuracy on the WGS84 ellipsoid (geodesics ECEF/NED/ENU transformations datums altitude references) at any distance and latitude
- Designing re-planning and rejoin strategies for when the aircraft leaves its plan or conditions change and validating every plan as flyable before it reaches the aircraft
- Writing production C to safety-critical standards tested at unit integration and simulation (SITL/HIL) level
- Owning navigations contribution to the safety case and certification evidence and supporting flight-test campaigns
Other Details:
- No. of Positions: 1
- Duration: Permanent Full-Time starting December 2026
- Base Compensation: 153920 to 168480
- This is a hybrid role involving remote work and on-site presence to support field testsyou must be in the Greater Toronto Area or willing to relocate
- Competitive and comprehensive compensation (e.g. 3 weeks of vacation upon joining comprehensive health and wellness plans)
- You must be eligible to hold a Government of Canada security clearance at the Reliability or Secret level and pass security assessment for the Controlled Goods Program
Qualifications
As the ideal candidate you meet the following requirements:
- A university degree in aerospace mechanical electrical or software engineering computer science robotics or a related field
- Experience developing navigation flight management or guidance software that has flown
- Modern C (C17/20) on Linux with libraries such as Eigen and GeographicLib
- Strong understanding of aviation navigation: en-route VFR and IFR procedures holding patterns approaches and RNAV/RNP
- Strong knowledge of geodesy: WGS84 geodesic and great-circle calculations and geodetic ECEF and local tangent-plane frames
- Experience planning paths and trajectories in 3D including turn geometry climb and descent profiles and wind effects
- Experience testing in simulation (e.g. X-Plane JSBSim Gazebo) and against recorded flight data
- Ability to lead design reviews mentor peers and write clear documentation
Preferred and bonus qualifications include experience with:
- Developing and/or flight-testing autonomous aircraft or drones in a professional setting
- A pilot licence or flight training or operational experience with flight planning and ATC procedures
- Aviation navigation standards and data (e.g. ARINC 424 RTCA DO-236/DO-283 ICAO PANS-OPS)
- Terrain obstacle and airspace data (e.g. digital elevation models geofencing airspace boundaries)
- Trajectory optimisation classical planners (e.g. Dubins paths A* RRT*) or search patterns (e.g. IAMSAR)
- Safety-critical standards and processes (e.g. DO-178C MISRA C static analysis)
You also possess the soft skills to work in a high-stakes tight-knit company such as:
- Openness to give and receive feedback
- Adaptability when priorities move
- Self-awareness about your own strengths and gaps
- Taking initiative with minimal guidance
Required Experience:
Senior IC
