Drone Systems Engineer

About the role

You will join a drone technology company as the connective tissue between the airframe, avionics, software, and payload teams. You own the system-level picture: how every subsystem behaves together in flight, where the interfaces break, and what it takes to ship a reliable aircraft. This role exists because great drone companies fail at integration, not at individual components, and you will be the person who keeps the whole vehicle coherent from first concept through production and into fleet operations.

What you will achieve

• Define and maintain the system architecture and interface control documents for a multirotor or fixed-wing UAS platform, keeping every engineering team aligned to one authoritative source of truth as the design evolves.
• Drive end-to-end integration and bring-up of new airframes, taking a vehicle from first power-on through ground testing to stable autonomous flight within the program schedule.
• Reduce in-flight anomalies and subsystem integration defects by building rigorous test matrices that cover nominal, degraded, and edge-case configurations across the full operating envelope.
• Lead system-level tradeoff analyses spanning weight, power, cost, and endurance, giving the propulsion, structure, and avionics teams quantified guidance for their design decisions.
• Deliver complete system verification evidence for airworthiness and certification milestones, including full traceability from requirements through design to flight test results.

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 2-5 years of experience in systems engineering for unmanned aircraft, robotics, or aerospace platforms, with at least one vehicle taken through full integration.
• Hands-on experience with flight control stacks such as PX4 or ArduPilot, including parameter tuning and log analysis with tools like Flight Review.
• Solid understanding of avionics, power, RF, and software interfaces on a UAS, including CAN bus, MAVLink, PWM, and serial protocols.
• Experience writing and managing system requirements, interface control documents, and verification plans in a requirements management tool.
• Familiarity with DFMEA or similar risk analysis methods applied to complex electromechanical systems with safety implications.
• Ability to read schematics and mechanical drawings well enough to debug integration issues that span multiple engineering disciplines.
• Bachelor's degree in aerospace, electrical, mechanical engineering, or a related field.

Nice-to-haves

• Part 107 remote pilot certification and logged flight test hours on multiple airframe types.
• Experience with model-based systems engineering tools such as Cameo or Capella.
• Background in regulatory processes such as FAA type certification or ASTM F38 standards.
• Prior work on programs that reached production and sustained fleet operations.