About Forterra
The Emerging Technologies team at Forterra develops mission specific, autonomous ground vehicle platforms spanning both the military and commercial vehicle applications. Our systems must be field-ready, reliable, and compliant with safety, cybersecurity, and mission assurance standards. We work closely with government and commercial stakeholders to deliver high-performance ground autonomy solutions for complex, real-world environments.

We are seeking a Chief Engineer to direct technical execution for complex defense autonomy programs within Emerging Technologies serving as the technical owner, Architect, and engineering lead. This hands-on leadership role carries full accountability for technical outcomes from concept through integration and delivery. The Technical Lead will interface directly with government customers, manage internal engineering execution, collaborate with all internal partners (Operations, Hardware, Core Software, etc.), and ensure delivery of a fully integrated, mission-capable system. This position is not a coordination role — it requires deep technical judgment, system level thinking, direct problem-solving, hands-on leadership of multidisciplinary teams, and decision-making under pressure.

About the role

Forterra is seeking a senior software engineer with a passion for autonomous systems. In this role, you will design, develop, and field software solutions that enable intelligent behavior in robotics and automation technologies. You will directly support real-world missions across our fleet of ground vehicles operated by our national security customers around the world.

The ideal candidate has a strong software development background, familiarity with robotics and autonomous systems, and proven track record of collaborating with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, and product managers to create robust and scalable software for complex systems.

What you'll do

• Bring autonomy into real operations: Integrate and deploy our autonomy stack on customer-bound hardware platforms and validate it in real-world conditions.

• Build with users and stakeholders: Work across the organization and directly with end-users to deliver new behaviors, payload integrations, and emerging mission use-cases.

• Optimize the full system: Take a holistic view of autonomous vehicle behavior—how sensing, compute, controls, and other subsystems interact—and drive overall performance improvements.

• Close the loop from test to deploy: Analyze test results, identify issues and root causes, and collaborate with engineering teams to drive problems to resolution

• Improve the core autonomy stack: Detect performance shortfalls, shape solution approaches, and implement enhancements in partnership with cross-functional teams.

• Connect product needs to R&D execution: Partner across business development and engineering teams to translate customer requirements into delivered autonomy capabilities.

• Travel: Travel ranging from 10-25% and 25-50% depending on candidate preference and role placement. Ability to commute to Arlington, VA as needed.

Qualifications

• 3 or more years of relevant experience

• B.S. in computer science, engineering, robotics, or related field or relevant experience/show of skill

• Experience in integrating software on hardware products

• Strong programming skills in languages such as C++, Python, or Java

• Solid core software engineering skills: software design, unit testing, debugging

• Ability to consistently deliver production-quality software in a continuously integrated environment

• Strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, and software design principles

• Demonstrates clean, maintainable code and documentation practices

• Experience working in teams and a willingness to proactively solve problems

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in software development for robotics and autonomous systems

• Experience with safety-critical systems (e.g., MIL-STD-882, ISO-26262, DO-178)

• Experience with ROS2

• Experience with state machines and motion / path planning

• Knowledge of navigation, mapping algorithms and robot perception

• Familiarity with real-time operating systems and embedded programming

• Leadership experience on cross-functional software teams

US Salary Range
$120,000—$250,000

The salary range for this role is an estimate and is based on a wide variety of compensation factors. The salary offered to candidates will vary based on a variety of factors including (but not limited to) relevant work experience, education, specialized training, critical expertise, training, and more. Equity in Forterra is included in most of our full-time, high-demand roles and is therefore considered part of Forterra’s overall compensation package. In addition to base salary and equity, Forterra offers competitive benefits for full-time employees including:

• Premium Healthcare Benefits: Three plan options, including an HSA-eligible plan, with Forterra covering 80% of the plan premium for you and your dependents.
• Basic Life/AD&D, short and long-term disability insurance plans 100% covered by Forterra, plus the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your dependents.
• Extremely generous company holiday calendar including a winter break in December.
• Competitive paid time off (PTO) offering 20 days accrued per year.
• A minimum of 7 weeks fully paid parental leave for birth/adoption.
• A $9k annual tuition reimbursement or professional development stipend.
• Fully stocked beverage refrigerators with all the Celsius your little heart desires.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan, including traditional, Roth 401(k), and after-tax deferral with company match up to 4%.

Your recruiter will be able to share more information about our salary and benefits offering during the hiring process.

Forterra is an equal-opportunity employer, providing and promoting equal employment opportunity in accordance with local, state, and federal laws. Forterrans are unique, talented individuals who are united through a shared passion to deliver autonomous systems that enable national resilience and a robust supply chain. All qualified applications will receive equal consideration for employment.