📍 Bucharest / Remote (EU) | Full-time | Equity + Growth

At Kalkan Defense Systems, we don’t wait for the future — we build it.
We’re designing Europe’s next-generation autonomous combat UAVs and the AI platform that will orchestrate them: KRONOS, our Autonomous Mission Orchestration system.

We’re looking for a Lead Autonomy / ML Engineer to join our founding tech team and own the brains behind KRONOS.

What you’ll do

• Design and implement ML models for autonomy, swarm coordination, and decision-making.

• Build the sim-to-real pipeline using environments like AirSim/Gazebo.

• Lead the ML data lifecycle: ingestion, labeling, training, and deployment.

• Optimize models to run on edge hardware (GPU, embedded) for real-time inference.

• Work closely with our UAV engineers to integrate AI into real-world flight tests.

What you bring

• 5+ years of experience in ML/AI, with hands-on work in reinforcement learning or multi-agent systems.

• Deep knowledge of PyTorch / TensorFlow.

• Experience with simulation frameworks (AirSim, Gazebo, Isaac Sim).

• Comfort with MLOps (training pipelines, versioning, CI/CD for models).

• Security-first mindset, ability to build resilient systems for contested environments.

Bonus points

• Prior work on swarm robotics or autonomous vehicles.

• Knowledge of ROS2, UAVs, or embedded optimization (ONNX, TensorRT).

• Defense / aerospace background (but not mandatory).

Why join us

• Be part of the founding engineering team — your work defines the future of KRONOS.

• Equity upside: we grow together.

• Work on real missions — from sim → prototype → flight.

• 100% EU-sovereign defense startup: we’re building fast, lean, and for Europe.

💡 If you’re ready to push the boundaries of autonomy and see your work fly — literally — we’d love to talk.