Hardware Systems Lead, Drone

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end hardware architecture, mechanical and electrical, for Applied Intuition’s drone platforms
• Be hands-on: prototype, build, integrate, debug, and test hardware on real aircraft, not just review designs
• Define and drive survivability: determine how sensors, compute, avionics, harnesses, connectors, and enclosures will hold up to vibration, shock, hard landings, thermal extremes, dust, water ingress, and EMI
• Lead integration of sensors (cameras, lidar, radar, GNSS/IMU), compute, power systems, communications, and flight controllers onto airframes
• Own size, weight, and power (SWaP) tradeoffs, balancing performance, flight time, payload capacity, and cost
• Define hardware requirements and reference architectures that scale across aircraft configurations
• Plan and run environmental, durability, and flight testing, analyze failures and crashes, and drive root cause and design fixes
• Be the technical authority and escalation point for hardware tradeoffs across mechanical, electrical, avionics, software, autonomy, and flight test

Job requirements

• BS/MS in Aerospace, Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronics, or a related field
• 10+ years of hands-on hardware engineering experience on drones, UAS, or other aircraft
• Strong command of the whole hardware system: airframe and structures, electrical architecture, power distribution, harness design, avionics, and how they interact
• A track record of designing hardware to survive demanding environments, with real experience in vibration, shock, ingress protection, thermal management, and EMI/EMC
• Hands-on experience in the lab and in the field: building prototypes, wiring and debugging systems, running flight tests, and diagnosing failures and crashes
• Experience integrating sensors such as cameras, lidar, radar, and GNSS/IMU, along with compute and flight control hardware, onto airborne platforms
• Experience with SWaP optimization and lightweight design, including composites and carbon fiber
• Experience with reliability and qualification testing (environmental testing, HALT, flight-hour tracking)