About the role

UAV Modeling & Simulation Engineer building and architecting a flight simulation platform for autonomous drones. Collaborating with the CTO to design a reliable, trustable simulation framework.

Responsibilities

You'll join as a founding engineer on our simulation platform., designing and building the flight simulation platform that powers both our autonomous planning stack and operator decision support.
Working with our CTO, you'll architect a custom-built sim framework from the ground up—one that real aircraft and real operators will trust to make real flight decisions.
Own the simulation engine end-to-end: design and build custom components where fidelity demands it, integrate and orchestrate existing frameworks where they earn their place
Build the simulation as a dual-purpose platform: a development and validation backbone for the planning stack, and an operator-facing decision support tool
Establish simulation fidelity standards — knowing when "good enough" is and when it isn't
Integrate meteorological and environmental data into live sim scenarios
Architect the sim to evolve alongside increasing vehicle complexity and operational demands
Your work directly determines whether our autonomy stack is grounded in physical reality — and whether operators trust it enough to deploy.

Simulation engineering: Demonstrated experience building simulation systems — flight, robotics, physics, or similar domains
Strong numerical methods and mathematical modeling fundamentals
Ability to design for fidelity and performance — knowing the trade-off and navigating it deliberately
Experience integrating real-world data sources (meteorological, sensor, environmental) into simulation environments
Software engineering — this is the bar: Strong C++ and/or Python — you write code others want to maintain
Systems-level thinking: performance, memory, concurrency where it matters
Software architecture fundamentals: clean interfaces, testable components, extensible design
Experience with real-time or high-frequency simulation loops is a strong plus
Domain knowledge: Working knowledge of flight mechanics — aerodynamics, kinematics, environmental disturbances
Familiarity with UAV systems, autonomous platforms, or aerospace simulation is a strong plus
Experience with meteorological data formats (NetCDF, GRIB, HRRR) is a bonus
Infrastructure: Comfortable with cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred), Docker, Git
Experience designing APIs or interfaces that expose sim state to external consumers (planners, UIs)
Nice to have: Robotics simulation background (ROS, Gazebo, or similar)
Experience building operator-facing tools or visualization layers
Degree in Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or related field — but we'll prioritize what you've built over credentials.

Equity ownership – You're building foundational systems. You should own a meaningful piece of what we're creating.
Architectural influence – This isn't "implement the spec." You'll define what flight simulation looks like at Shearwater alongside the CTO.
Hybrid flexibility – Work where you're most productive. We're in Montreal but value focus time and thoughtful collaboration over face-time.
Direct impact – The sim you build runs in the planning loop and in front of operators making real mission decisions. You'll see your work shape how autonomous flight gets trusted and deployed.
Strong fundamentals in simulation or systems engineering but don't check every box? We want to hear from you. We value first-principles thinking and engineering craft over credential collection.