Job Summary
Job Description
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is seeking a Robotics Software Engineer to join the National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF). This is a regular, full-time, exempt position and its eligible for benefits. This position supports underwater vehicles and associated oceanographic systems. The engineer will develop, integrate, test, and maintain software used to operate robotic vehicles, acquire scientific data, and turn data collected at sea into reliable scientific and engineering products. This position offers the opportunity to work on software that supports human-occupied, remotely operated, and autonomous underwater vehicles, including HOV Alvin, ROV Jason, and AUV Sentry.
The successful candidate will work with engineers, technicians, vehicle operators, scientists, and external collaborators in the laboratory and at sea. The work spans the full lifecycle of marine robotic systems, from design and bench testing through vehicle integration, field operations, troubleshooting, and post-deployment analysis. The ideal candidate is excited to brainstorm creative engineering approaches to science problems, combine existing tools like ROS1/ROS2 with developing technologies like AI/ML, and validate them in the field under demanding conditions. We're looking for a self-starter who gets fulfillment seeing their ideas come to life operationally.
This is an Engineer II position on WHOI's engineering ladder. With some supervision to achieve assigned objectives, the engineer will identify and participate in engineering projects in support of scientific and research activities through demonstrated skill in robotics software, embedded or real-time systems, scientific computing, or a related area. Assignments will require creativity, independent thinking, sound engineering judgment, and a proven understanding of fundamental engineering and research principles.
The engineer will contribute to the continued development and modernization of WHOI's marine robotics software ecosystem. Current work includes maintaining operational ROS 1 systems; developing and deploying ROS 2 software; migrating proven capabilities between generations of the software stack; integrating navigation, control, sonar, acoustic, optical, and environmental sensors; improving simulation and operator interfaces; and developing reproducible pipelines for post-dive navigation and scientific data products.
Because these systems operate in remote and demanding environments, reliability, testability, observability, and clear documentation are central to the position. The engineer must be able to work effectively both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team and must be willing to support vehicle testing and operations at sea.
Essential Functions & Duties
Conceptualize, design, implement, and test software solutions for underwater robotic vehicles and oceanographic instrumentation.
Develop and maintain modular robotics software in modern C++ and Python on Linux-based systems, primarily using ROS 1 and ROS 2.
Integrate sensors, actuators, navigation systems, data loggers, operator interfaces, and vehicle subsystems using serial, Ethernet, UDP/TCP, CAN, and other device interfaces and protocols.
Contribute to navigation, vehicle control, mission execution, health monitoring, simulation, visualization, and scientific data-acquisition capabilities.
Port and validate operational capabilities from legacy systems to modern software architectures while preserving interfaces, behavior, and data compatibility where required.
Develop automated tests, simulation tools, replay workflows, and regression datasets to verify software before deployment and to reproduce issues observed during field operations.
Diagnose and resolve software, networking, timing, sensor-integration, and electromechanical system problems in the laboratory and at sea.
Process, analyze, visualize, and quality-control vehicle and scientific data; contribute to reproducible…