Principal Forward Deployed Autonomous Systems Engineer

Job description

Job responsibilities

• Establish and maintain operating standards for autonomous vehicles and their supporting systems
• Determine the operational readiness of vehicles, personnel, equipment, procedures, and deployment packages
• Own operational readiness for an assigned vehicle family, including stratospheric or high-performance autonomous platforms
• Lead Flight Operations engagement with military customers, government sponsors, ranges, and other external stakeholders
• Advise company leadership on deployment readiness, technical risk, personnel requirements, and operational constraints
• Drive product improvements by translating test, deployment, operator, and customer feedback into clear engineering priorities
• Partner with engineering and program teams to transition prototype systems into reliable, repeatable, and supportable products
• Develop operational concepts of employment, deployment models, and field-support strategies

Job requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in robotics, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, or another relevant STEM discipline; or equivalent hands-on technical experience
• Extensive experience operating, integrating, testing, or fielding unmanned aircraft, autonomous systems, robotics, or similarly complex electromechanical systems
• Demonstrated experience leading technical field operations, deployments, flight-test activities, or customer demonstrations
• Strong understanding of complete system architectures and subsystem interactions
• Advanced troubleshooting ability across several disciplines, including mechanical systems, avionics, radio-frequency systems, networking, flight controls, and software
• Experience determining operational readiness and making risk-informed go/no-go recommendations
• Experience developing technical procedures, checklists, operating standards, training materials, or maintenance practices
• Experience training technical personnel and developing other instructors