Junior Defense Engineer

About the role

You will join a defense technology company as a junior engineer on a team building real mission systems, where your contributions ship in actual products from your first year. You will learn how defense engineering actually works: disciplined analysis, careful documentation, configuration control, and testing that proves what you claim before anyone fields it. Senior engineers will mentor you directly through design tasks, lab work, and reviews, and your growth is measured by the increasing independence and quality of the work you deliver.

What you will achieve

• Complete assigned analysis and design tasks to the team's quality bar, with your work passing peer review after at most one revision cycle.
• Support lab and field testing by preparing setups, running procedures, and reducing data into clear plots and summaries.
• Author or update technical documentation, including test procedures and design notes, that other engineers can follow without asking you questions.
• Build working fluency in the team's core tools within six months, from CAD or MATLAB to the requirements and configuration systems.
• Present your work in a design review by the end of your first year, defending your analysis with data.

What you will bring

Must-haves

• You hold a bachelor's degree in engineering, physics, mathematics, or a closely related technical field.
• You bring strong fundamentals: statics, dynamics, circuits, or software, depending on your discipline, with grades or projects to show it.
• You have completed hands-on projects such as a senior design, internship, research lab, or serious personal build.
• You write and communicate clearly, asking good questions and documenting what you learn.
• You are disciplined about process: version control, configuration management, and following test procedures exactly.
• You take feedback well and actively seek mentorship to grow your engineering judgment.
• You are comfortable working in a lab or shop environment, following safety procedures and handling hardware with care.

Nice-to-haves

• You have interned or co-oped with a defense, aerospace, or high-reliability hardware company.
• You bring familiarity with MATLAB, Python, or CAD tools from coursework or projects.
• You have participated in a competition team such as robotics, rocketry, or Baja.
• You are eligible for a U.S. security clearance.
• You have contributed to open-source engineering projects or published technical writing such as a blog or forum guides.