Lead Perception & Autonomy Engineer

Build and deploy the onboard autonomy and perception systems that enable Praetorian's interceptors to detect, track, and defeat threats in contested environments — from edge compute to live flight.

About Praetorian

Praetorian Aeronautics builds advanced autonomous aerial systems designed to protect and defend against the rapidly evolving threat of drone warfare.

Headquartered in Adelaide, and with offices in Melbourne and Darwin, we are developing an integrated ecosystem of counter-autonomy systems including:

• Arrow – an autonomous, high-speed, low-cost, VTOL interceptor for kinetic neutralisation of multiple UxS threat-types beyond visual range
• Dagger – a new class of modular, low-cost, autonomous, high-speed interceptor for long-range, high-altitude kinetic neutralisation of UxS targets
• Hadrian – an AI-enhanced command and control system enabling operators to deploy interceptors at scale
• Venator – a long-endurance autonomous mothership UAS capable of deploying interceptors and extending operational reach

Together, these systems enable defence operators to detect, assess, and defeat autonomous threats while maintaining situational dominance in contested environments.

The summary

Autonomous interceptors operating beyond visual range in GPS-denied, communications-degraded environments cannot rely on human input at the moment of engagement. Everything depends on what is running onboard — the perception pipeline, the mission execution logic, the autonomy stack that holds it all together under real-world constraints.

You will join the Effectors team, reporting to the CTO, to own that layer across Praetorian's interceptor platforms — Arrow, Dagger, and Venator. That means leading development of onboard computer vision and multi-object tracking pipelines for real-time aerial target detection, deploying AI-enabled perception onto embedded and edge-compute platforms under latency and compute constraints, and integrating autonomy stacks with PX4/ArduPilot and EO/IR payload systems. You will develop mission execution behaviours for comms-degraded and disconnected operations, build and maintain SITL/HITL environments, and progress your work through to live flight trials. The bridge between research capability and fielded mission system runs through this role.

What We're Looking For

• Strong experience developing and deploying computer vision, detection, and tracking systems in real-world environments
• Hands-on embedded systems experience — onboard compute, camera and sensor integration, edge AI deployment
• Proficiency in Python and C/C++
• Experience with SITL/HITL environments and progression through to live flight testing
• Degree in Computer Science, Robotics, Aerospace, or related field — or equivalent practical experience

Nice to Have

• Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, or MAVLink ecosystems
• Background in EO/IR payload integration
• Familiarity with AI/ML tooling — ClearML, CVAT, or similar
• Exposure to Unreal Engine or synthetic environment generation
• Experience with resilient autonomy in degraded communications environments
• Defence or aerospace autonomy background

Benefits

• Employee share option plan (ESOP)
• Work on advanced autonomy and defence technology
• Join a small, highly technical engineering team
• Real ownership and influence as Praetorian scales
• Professional development and learning opportunities

Interested to find out more? Reach out to us at careers@praetorian-aeronautics.com or hit Apply.