Senior Software Engineer - Navigation & Path Planning

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 customer. In 2023, we signed our first federal contract with the Government of Canada, during which we performed Canada’s 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 world's first demonstration of collaborative teaming between an autonomous airplane and an autonomous helicopter. We also deployed Canada's first optionally piloted aircraft with a military callsign. We are now building novel autonomous aircraft for DND and Canada's 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 robotics—we're concentrating the world's best software, robotics, and aeronautical expertise to pursue our mission of making air transportation accessible to everyone. If you’re 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 navigation's 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
• Compensation: 168000 to 183000 (includes base salary + equity + bonus)
• This is a remote role that involves some on-site presence to support field tests—you must be in the Greater Toronto Area/Hamilton/Kitchener/Waterloo 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++ (C++17/20) 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

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

Note: We read everything that comes our way. Let your outstanding résumé (cover letter and design portfolio encouraged but optional) do the talking. For important questions or comments, contact us at [email protected].