---
title: 'Software Engineer, Autonomy at Rain'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-autonomy-rain-alameda-9zkhdv52s7ej'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-05'
---

# Software Engineer, Autonomy at Rain

- **Company:** Rain
- **Location:** Alameda, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-09-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/rain-aero/am9icG9zdDo__biVovOaPQjdJ8jhilLI

## Job description

## About the role

You are responsible for creating the core decision-making framework, algorithms, and models that guide multi-aircraft coordinated wildfire suppression. At the nexus of the perception pipeline, suppression execution engine, and operator command interface, your systems will rapidly develop and adapt strategies in a changing wildfire environment to achieve suppression goals. You will collaborate directly with firefighters, pilots, and your engineering colleagues to determine and validate system requirements.

## What we do

Rain integrates with early wildfire detection to dispatch autonomous aircraft to suspected ignitions. Once dispatched, Rain’s Wildfire Mission Autonomy System perceives the fire, shares intelligence, develops a suppression strategy, and when approved, completes the water drop and evaluates its efficacy. Combining wildfire mission management, path planning, fire perception, suppression strategy, and suppressant targeting, Rain’s technology gives fire agencies the ability to stop wildfires in their earliest stages, before they grow out of control.

## Responsibilities

- Build and integrate mission-level autonomy frameworks for goal-oriented behavior, task assignment, and system-level coordination
- Enable intuitive human command and supervision, communicating intent, and building operator confidence in mission-critical contexts
- Develop algorithms for collaborative autonomy involving multiple aircraft
- Ensure real-time performance and reliability of autonomy software, especially under compute-constrained and communications-limited conditions.
- Design autonomy software with fault-tolerance, fail-safe behavior, and robustness to uncertain environments or degraded sensors.
- Validate and test in simulation and in flight, ensuring mission success in challenging conditions faced by firefighting aircraft
- Collaborate closely with other members of the engineering team to develop and test the algorithms that power the wildfire mission autonomy system
- Contribute to simulation environments for training, testing, and validation

## Qualifications

- Deep expertise (6+ years of experience) in software engineering for UAS, robotics, or other safety-critical applications
- Strong proficiency in C++14 (or newer) development for resource-limited environments
- Knowledge of planning, state machines, or behavior trees
- Background in robotics, control systems, or aerospace autonomy
- Familiarity with simulation tools (e.g., Unreal Engine, AirSim, AFSIM)
- Understanding of communication protocols, real-time constraints, and embedded systems

What will make you a great fit

- You’re excited about Rain’s mission to stop wildfires before they grow out of control
- You thrive in small teams, where you can see the immediate impact of your knowledge and expertise
- You have experience with reinforcement learning or adaptive autonomy
- You’re familiar with STANAG/DoD autonomy standards and DO-178C
- You’ve previously worked with uncrewed aerial systems, aviation, aerospace
- You’ve served as a firefighter
- You are willing to travel at least 15% of the year for validation testing

Location

This is an on-site position. Our office is located in Alameda, California—just across the Bay from San Francisco. The office is easily accessible by ferry, bike and scooter, and there is ample parking.

Legal Notice

This role involves access to information governed by U.S. export control laws. To comply, applicants must qualify as a “U.S. Person” (U.S. Citizen, lawful permanent resident, refugee, or asylee). Employment offers are contingent upon meeting these requirements.

## About Rain

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Rain builds autonomous wildfire intelligence and suppression systems for uncrewed aircraft to detect, perceive, and extinguish fires in their earliest stages.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Early-stage startup)
- **Headquarters**: Alameda, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2019
- **Founders**: Bryan, Ephraim, Max (last names not publicly disclosed)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Autonomous systems, aerospace, wildfire management, climate tech
- Target customers: B2G (government fire agencies), B2B (private firefighting operators), enterprise (aviation partners)
- Mission: Provide autonomous technology for rapid wildfire response, protecting communities and firefighters by enabling aircraft to work safely in dangerous conditions, including at night and degraded visual environments.

## Products & Services
- **Wildfire Mission Autonomy System**: An end-to-end autonomous intelligence platform that perceives a wildfire, understands its behavior (size, spread direction), develops an optimal suppression strategy, and commands uncrewed aircraft to execute water drops. Key capabilities include hotspot detection, perimeter control, and post-drop efficacy evaluation.
- **Wildfire Perception System**: A sensor fusion and data processing system that transforms real-time visual, thermal, and geospatial data into actionable fire intelligence, enabling autonomous aircraft to see through smoke and darkness.
- **Autonomous Suppression Aircraft Integration**: Retrofitting existing helicopter platforms (e.g., Black Hawk) with Rain’s autonomy stack, allowing them to operate without onboard pilots for suppression missions.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed (Series stage unknown)
- **Funding**: Not publicly disclosed; operates as a small, funded startup backed by grants or private investors (exact details not available)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: 
  - Sikorsky (a Lockheed Martin company) – demonstrated autonomous wildfire suppression technology together in California
  - Brothers Air Support – private Black Hawk firefighting operator; first integration of Rain’s perception system with a private firefighting aircraft
  - Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) – participated in live-flight demonstrations
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Successfully demonstrated world’s first fully autonomous wildfire detection and suppression (2019 MK1 prototype over ~40 acres)
  - Completed multi-aircraft coordinated operations with human-piloted helicopters in same Fire Traffic Area
  - Actively hiring across multiple engineering roles (autonomy, IT/DevSecOps, software engineering)
  - Focus on expanding prepositioned autonomous aircraft network in high-risk areas

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover in autonomous wildfire suppression**: Only company combining real-time fire perception, mission planning, and autonomous aircraft control in a single integrated system
- **Military-grade partnerships**: Relationship with Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin provides credibility, access to aircraft platforms, and deep aerospace expertise
- **Proven real-world demonstrations**: Multiple successful flight tests showing autonomous takeoff, fire identification, and water drops in representative wildfire environments
- **Firefighter-centered design**: Built by a team with direct firefighting experience; technology specifically addresses the needs and constraints of wildland fire operations
- **Regulatory and safety focus**: Emphasis on DO-178C compliance, safety-critical software, and real-time performance under degraded environmental conditions

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale autonomous aircraft networks**: Preposition numerous uncrewed aircraft throughout high-risk wildland-urban interfaces for rapid response (within critical first minutes of ignition)
- **Expand partnerships**: Work with more fire agencies and private firefighting operators to integrate Rain’s technology into existing fleets
- **Enable nighttime operations**: A key differentiator, as most aerial firefighting stops at dusk; Rain’s autonomy works in degraded visual environments
- **Build cross-platform compatibility**: Ensure system works across different helicopter models (Black Hawk, other platforms)
- **Continue validation testing**: Regular flight testing and simulation to refine autonomy in challenging real-world conditions

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven culture**: Directly tackling the urgent problem of catastrophic wildfires, protecting lives and communities
- **Small, nimble team**: Real ownership and immediate impact; employees work across the full stack and see results in the field
- **Unique environment**: Office located in Alameda, CA (across bay from San Francisco), with a firehouse shop for personal projects, go-kart track in the back lot, and panoramic views of the Bay
- **On-site role**: All engineering roles are on-site at Alameda; some travel for testing (approx 15% per year)
- **Benefits**: 401(k), free lunch, great health insurance, ping pong table, unlimited/minimum time off policy
- **Culture values**: Diversity & inclusion (explicitly stated), collaboration across small team, high autonomy and ownership, safety-critical engineering rigor
- **Growth opportunity**: Early-stage company with significant technical challenges; hands-on work with cutting-edge autonomy, perception, and aerospace systems
- **Satisfying work**: Engineers see their code deployed in real flight tests and actual firefighting missions

## Sources
1. [rain.aero – Careers page](https://www.rain.aero/careers)
2. [rain.aero – Main website](https://www.rain.aero/)
3. [rain.aero – About Us](https://www.rain.aero/about-us)
4. [rain.aero – Software Engineer, Autonomy job posting](https://www.rain.aero/software-engineer-autonomy)

## Other roles at Rain

- [IT / DevSecOps Engineer Contractor](https://feeny.ai/job/it-devsecops-engineer-contractor-rain-alameda-yn505d9jny8b) — Alameda, CA
- [Software Engineer, Mission Simulation](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-mission-simulation-rain-alameda-qrprgbpxnkdx) — Alameda, CA
- [Software Engineer, Perception](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-perception-rain-alameda-580aese7sgze) — Alameda, CA
- [Software Engineer, Autonomy](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-autonomy-swarm-aero-remote-8tmzhrrhz25b)