We are an early-stage, maritime defense technology startup backed by top tier investors. Our team is designing and building autonomous and highly producible ships that can serve multiple missions on the open ocean. 

Role Summary

Weʼre seeking a Systems Integration and Testing Manager to lead a team of Systems Integration & Testing Engineers responsible for final integration, bring-up, and validation of the full vessel stack. This critical leadership role sits at the intersection of hardware, software, and autonomy systems engineering — from low-level sensors and controllers

up through networking, middleware, compute, and the autonomy software stack. This position is based at our New Bedford testing facility and will be the primary technical leader on site for integration and test activities. Youʼll work closely with the hardware, software, and testing operations teams to ensure configurations, performance, and system-level behavior are validated during integration and sea trials. You will establish practical, startup-friendly standards and processes that let the company move with speed while maintaining safe, repeatable integration and test practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a hands-on Systems Integration & Testing team based at the New Bedford testing facility; hire, mentor, and allocate engineers across concurrent integration and testing projects.
• Plan and execute final integration and bring-up activities across the full vessel stack: sensors, embedded controllers, networking, compute nodes, middleware (DDS/ROS/etc.), and other systems.
• Establish acceptance criteria and configuration management processes that ensure hardware, software, and system configurations are validated ahead of test campaigns.
• Coordinate with hardware teams on instrumenting systems, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setups, validating sensor and actuator performance, and confirming thermal/power/network behavior under load.
• Partner with the Testing Operations team to schedule test campaigns, create detailed test procedures, manage instrumentation and data collection for post-campaign analysis.
• Produce timely, actionable test reports and dashboards for the engineering team and stakeholders: summarize pass/fail status, performance metrics, anomaly logs, recommended corrective actions, and evidence (plots, log snapshots, synchronized telemetry).
• Lead post-test analysis and root cause investigations; produce actionable reports and corrective plans that feed back into product and software teams.
• Host customers, executives, and investors for on-site demos and impromptu technical walkthroughs; represent the integrity of the integrated system during high-visibility events.
• Establish safety, rollback, and configuration-recovery procedures for lab and sea trials; coordinate with operations and engineering to ensure safe execution of integration activities.
• Maintain documentation, test procedures, and checklists for repeatable bring-up and regression test activities.

Qualifications

• You have hands-on experience leading system integration, bring-up, or test teams for robotic/autonomy systems or complex electro-mechanical products.
• You understand autonomy and robotics development workflows and can speak the same technical language as autonomy/robotics software developers (perception, state estimation, control, middleware, data pipelines).
• Youʼre experienced with sensor and actuator integration, time-synchronization and timestamping, data acquisition, and validating system performance end-to-end.
• You can read and reason about embedded controllers, CAN/CAN-FD, Ethernet networks, switch configuration, time-sensitive networking concerns, and compute platform constraints.
• You have experience defining integration test plans, acceptance criteria, and configuration management practices in labs or field test environments.
• You collaborate effectively with software engineers to design HIL tests, simulate failure modes, and create reproducible regression tests.
• You have strong customer-facing skills: comfortable hosting demos, explaining technical tradeoffs to non-technical execs or investors, and representing product readiness.
• You are organized, metrics-driven, and pragmatic: able to trade off scope vs. schedule to enable rapid iteration while protecting system safety and test integrity.
• You have at least five (5) years of relevant experience across hardware and software systems; prior experience in autonomy, robotics, maritime, defense, or aerospace is highly valued.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with ROS/ROS2, DDS/RTPS, or other robotic middleware stacks.
• Experience designing HIL/IL tests, automated regression harnesses and CI for robotics/autonomy.
• Prior responsibility for lab or field test facility operations (scheduling, safety, instrumentation).
• Familiarity with sensor calibration, time sync (PTP/NTP), and large telemetry ingestion/analysis pipelines.
• Experience working with customers and stakeholders on high-visibility demonstrations and acceptance events.

What We Offer 

• Incredibly high-caliber teammates. You’ll work directly with our co-founders Rylan, Scott, and Austin. 
• A fast-paced, creative working environment that offers a lot of room for ownership and growth.
• Opportunity to join a meaningful mission that protects American and our Democracy.

Compensation

• Salary Range: $140,000 - $160,000 annual base salary (final compensation will depend on experience and skill level)
• Additional compensation: Startup equity options
• Benefits: health, dental, vision, PTO

Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities. By applying, you confirm that you are a U.S. Person and can provide acceptable documentation verifying your status if selected.   

Blue Water Autonomy is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. All employment decisions—including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits, and termination—are made based on qualifications, merit, and business need.