Mission Software Engineer Intern

At REGENT, we’re on a mission to revolutionize regional transportation between coastal cities. We're not just building vehicles, we're creating a new category of transportation: the Seaglider. These groundbreaking wing-in-ground-effect craft travel just above the water’s surface, combining the speed of an airplane with the low operating costs of a boat. Capable of 180 miles at 180 mph on today's battery tech (and up to 400 miles with next-gen batteries), Seagliders will unlock fast, affordable, and sustainable coastal transit for passengers and cargo - connecting cities, islands, and communities like never before.

Backed by leading investors and powered by a team of passionate, forward-thinking engineers, builders, and operators, we’re now scaling from a breakthrough prototype to full production - and building the team to make it happen.

Role Overview

Every flight test day at REGENT generates a flood of vehicle data, and the faster that data turns into engineering answers, the faster our Seaglider programs move toward production. As a Mission Software Engineering Intern, you'll own a bounded project of your own in test, ground systems, or vehicle health monitoring — something like telemetry prioritization for constrained radio links, ingest and replay tooling, or a fault-detection prototype — built and verified against recorded data and bench setups. You'll also help build the downstream data path for our test infrastructure effort: the schemas, ingest pipelines, and quick-look analysis tools that turn raw telemetry into something engineers can actually use.

You'll sit within Mission Software Engineering, a team working across navigation and route software, perception and autonomy interfaces, vehicle deployment tooling, and the test and ground systems that support all of it. This team believes rigor should scale with criticality, and you'll see that principle in action as your tooling supports real test campaigns and crew-facing, vehicle-health data.

If you're a graduate student who wants hands-on ownership of real engineering problems - not a side project, but work the team will actually rely on - we'd love to meet you.

What You'll Do

• Own a Scoped Project: You'll take ownership of one focused project in test and ground systems or vehicle health monitoring, such as telemetry prioritization for constrained links, ingest and replay tooling, or a fault-detection prototype.

• Build the Downstream Data Path: You'll contribute to our test infrastructure effort, helping design telemetry schemas and build ingest, replay, and quick-look analysis tooling that engineers depend on after a test day.

• Work Against Real Vehicle Data: You'll build and verify your project against recorded data and bench setups, learning how the vehicle's publish/subscribe data model moves information across topics, QoS, and schemas.

• Test for the Hard Cases: You'll write automated tests that cover the scenarios that actually break systems in the field, including stale, missing, delayed, and malformed data.

• Get Close to Flight Test: You may support live test campaigns and work with crew-facing and vehicle health data, giving you a front-row seat to how rigor is matched to criticality across the vehicle.

• Collaborate Across Vehicle Programs: You'll work alongside engineers supporting Paladin, Viceroy, and Squire, picking up context on navigation, perception interfaces, and deployment tooling along the way.

• Document and Present Your Work: You'll walk the team through your design decisions and findings, leaving behind documentation they can reuse and build on well after your internship ends.

What You'll Bring

• Graduate-Level Foundation: You're currently enrolled in an M.S. or PhD program in computer science, software engineering, robotics, ECE, aerospace, or a related field.

• Fluency in Python and C++: You're strong in Python and/or modern C++ (17 or later) and comfortable building and debugging in a Linux environment from day one.

• Rock-Solid CS Fundamentals: You have a genuine command of software design, data structures, concurrency, and automated testing, and you know how to apply that rigor to real systems.

• A Distributed Systems Mindset: You're familiar with event-driven or publish/subscribe systems, message passing, and networking, and you think naturally in terms of topics and data flow.

• Hands-On With Pub/Sub Middleware: Experience with DDS, ROS 2, MQTT, or similar middleware is a strong plus and will shorten your ramp-up on the vehicle's data model.

• Telemetry and Visualization Chops: Experience with data logging, time-series pipelines, or building dashboards will serve you well, since most project areas center on exactly this kind of tooling.

• Simulation and Replay Experience: Prior work with simulation, hardware-in-the-loop setups, or log replay tooling for robotic or vehicle software is a bonus, though we'll teach you our specific setup.

Who We're Looking For

• Collaborative Team Player: You believe that great things happen when teams work together. You communicate effectively and collaborate with engineers, stakeholders, and other cross-functional teams to align on goals and move projects forward. You bring people together, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and moving towards a shared vision.

• Creative Problem Solver: You thrive on tackling complex challenges and finding innovative solutions. Whether you're resolving installation challenges, debugging elusive electrical issues, or adapting on the fly during integration and test, you bring a practical, inventive mindset to every problem. You don't just patch issues - you improve processes, anticipate downstream impacts, and help turn one-off fixes into scalable solutions that raise the bar for future builds.

• Adaptable & Agile: In a fast-paced, ever-evolving startup environment, you quickly adapt to changing priorities and requirements. You approach challenges with a calm, resilient mindset, and know how to pivot and adjust your approach as needed, ensuring that progress continues without missing a beat.

• Innovative Mindset: You’re driven by curiosity and a passion for technology. You’re passionate about driving continuous improvement, embracing new technologies and methodologies to enhance efficiency, quality, and team performance.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation

• Housing Stipend available for those temporarily moving to join our team

• Daily, free catered lunches

• Learning & professional development opportunities

• Meaningful projects that make an impact

• Mentorship & guidance from experienced team members

If you’re ready to take on an exciting challenge, grow with us, and make a lasting impact, we want to hear from you. Even if you don’t meet every requirement, but you see yourself contributing to our mission, we encourage you to apply! We value diverse skillsets and experiences and believe in the potential of passionate individuals to make a big impact.

Equal Opportunity Employer

REGENT is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.