# Luis Russe > Autonomous Vehicle Software Engineer at Aurora Flight Sciences Location: New York City Metropolitan Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/luisrusse I’m a software engineer who’s passionate about turning the future of autonomous flight from science fiction into reality. Currently leading software teams at Aurora Flight Sciences, I architect the simulation environments that help autonomous vehicles learn to navigate increasingly complex scenarios. My journey into autonomy started with hardware testing, leading tactical radio qualification tests and evolved through the Air Force Research Lab, where I had the unique privilege of being hands-on with cutting-edge programs like Skyborg. I’ve worn many hats—from developing interfaces to test and evaluate collaborative autonomous vehicles in simulation environments, to literally operating autonomous vehicles during live flight tests, to leading Agile teams as a Scrum Master. Each role taught me that great autonomous systems aren’t just about brilliant algorithms; they’re about the interfaces, the testing frameworks, and the collaborative teams that bring them to life. What drives me is the challenge of making machines work together intelligently. Whether I’m building CI/CD pipelines for simulation plugins, engineering PX4 interfaces for vehicle control, or designing data-generation systems to train AI/ML models, I’m always thinking about the bigger picture: how do we make autonomous systems safer, smarter, and more capable? When I’m not architecting simulation environments or leading technical demonstrations, you’ll find me diving into new frameworks—from Unreal Engine for realistic simulations to AirSim for UAV testing—because in this field, standing still means falling behind. Let’s connect if you’re passionate about autonomy, simulation, or building the software that powers tomorrow’s intelligent systems. ## Work Experience ### Autonomous Vehicle Software Engineer @ Aurora Flight Sciences Jan 2023 – Present | Manassas, VA * Architected an end-to-end ML pipeline for autonomous vehicle anomaly detection, cutting model training time from 2 days to 30 minutes via containerized simulation infrastructure * Delivered 14 software packages on schedule for a Phase 2 program demonstration — earning formal customer recognition for technical quality and completeness * Built a production-grade synthetic data generation pipeline with a configurable interface for simulation parameter control, supporting multiple ML model development workflows at scale * Led technical roadmap for multi-vehicle simulation capabilities, aligning with CTO and senior leadership to establish a 2025+ vision for simulation-based validation and autonomy testing * Reduced simulation turnaround time by 85% by architecting a parallel execution pipeline with automated results processing and centralized data storage * Designed an automated mission validation framework applying ML-based assertions to generate certification-ready performance reports, eliminating manual review bottlenecks * Architected a Python-based simulation orchestrator for the Cortex program that configures and launches containerized mission autonomy vehicles, deployable to EC2 and CI/CD environments * Led live-virtual-constructive (LVC) demonstrations bridging physical autonomous vehicles and virtual agents in real-time using AFRL simulation environment integration ### Software Engineer @ Leidos Jan 2018 – Jan 2023 | Dayton, Ohio Area Air Force Research Lab, Skyborg System Design Agent Integration Engineer, Autonomous Software Engineer •Acted as Autonomous Vehicle Operator during numerous live flight test events with subcontractors and technology-test squadrons within the Air Force •Integrated Autonomous Software with aircraft mission computer during various HW/SW integration events at aircraft vendor facilities •Created training events and test-cards between autonomous software and different Human Machine Interface solutions to increase cross-team and subcontractor collaboration and knowledge share •Developed requirements for front-end User Interface and translation adapter, and oversaw the development, testing and release of HMI translation adapter that made it possible for an autonomous jet-powered uncrewed aerial vehicle to communicate with a ground station HMI •Led small Agile interdisciplinary team in support of various HWIL and SWIL demonstrations to test and showcase autonomous behavior concepts Collaborative Autonomy Internal Research Autonomous Software Engineer, Scrum Master, Modeling and Simulation Engineer •Performed as Scrum Master, and partially Product Owner for a variety of Air Force and Commercial driven Internal Research Programs where we demonstrated our collaborative autonomy platform and capabilities •Learned how to use AirSim Application Programming Interface (an API for commercial UAV/UGV simulation framework) and wrote a multi-vehicle interface for evaluating collaborative autonomy software •Collaborated in risk reduction effort for flight demonstrations, wrote scripts for SWIL and HWIL simulations using PixHawk, JMAVSim, QGroundControl, and other components •Developed modular interface to enable collaborative autonomous software to operate in Air Force standard simulation framework (AFSIM) •Created realistic environment using Unreal Engine, that aims to be a remarkably close, almost one-to-one representation of any real-world environment [And much more!] ### Jr Software Engineer @ Optonicus Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Dayton, Ohio Area -Familiarization with Wave Optics Numerical Analysis Toolbox Software (GPU-based library that enables high speed/fidelity modeling and simulation of optical systems) -Developed software that allows for user to save/load different atmosphere configurations from either file or a specific instance ### Software Engineering Co-op @ DRS Technologies, Inc. Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Dayton My responsabilities included: -Ethernet/Flash programming processor cards with FPGAs, which included placing a file system in the card's main memory. -Conducted weekly regression tests on processor cards which I previously programmed. -Debugged as well as improved the Link Controller System's Human Machine Interface. The code files for this interface included some Python and C# (as well as some legacy code). -In charge of our system's Qualification Testing. -Contributed code files, in C++, that were in charge of driving our Link-22 systems. ### Software Engineer Co-op @ DRS Technologies, Inc. Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 My responsibilities as a student Co-op included but were not limited to: -Debugging software interface (project's Human-Machine-Interface) -Develop software solutions following coding standards particular to DRS -Documenting and Peer-Reviewing code committed by fellow Software Engineering peers -Conducting Software Unit Tests as well as Hardware Unit Tests -Become Knowledgeable in C# in order to modify aspects of the project's HMI (Human Machine Interface) to become more user-friendly ### Jr Software Engineer @ University of Dayton Research Institute Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 My responsibilities as a part-time Jr Software Engineer at UDRI included: -General understanding with mobile app development and programming language C# -Collaborate with the project team on designing a mobile app given program requirements -Build an android mobile app using Xamarin's cross platform development -Releasing multiple software builds to a Windows phone in order to verify code is working accordingly -Weekly status reporting with fellow project staff ## Education ### Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering University of Dayton ### High School Colegio Marista ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/luis-russe --- Source: https://flows.cv/luisrusse JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/luisrusse/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13