Aircraft Systems Safety Engineer Arlington, VA, Mountain View, CA, San Diego, CA
Listed on 2026-01-12
-
Engineering
Systems Engineer, Electrical Engineering
About Us
We’re a combat-tested group of engineers, operators, and entrepreneurs who believe America’s edge depends on autonomous airpower that’s trusted and deployable today not in 2040. Backed by tier‑one investors, we’ve secured the runway – financial, regulatory, and literal – to move at startup speed while tackling a national‑security mission that matters. We’ve structured the company for radical ownership: no silos, no “systems integrator” overhead, just tightly knit mission‑focused IPTs that live and breathe the hardware and code they ship.
If you thrive where hard‑tech ambition meets national‑security urgency, you’ll build faster here than anywhere else. Let’s get after it.
Culture That Ships- Strong Core Values, Startup Execution. Integrity, Service Before Self, Excellence, Honor, Courage, Commitment—powered by a bias for action and a “figure it out” mindset.
- Self‑Starters Only. You’ll have clear objectives, a blank sheet of paper, and the trust (plus capital) to move fast. Bureaucracy stays out of your way.
- One Team, No Tourists. Whether you’re tuning a control law at 2 a.m. or heat‑treating a Ti‑6
Al‑4V spar, everyone sweats the details. We celebrate wins together and own failures together.
- Mission With a Pulse. Every line of code, bracket, or test you deliver expands the toolbox of the warfighter on Day 1 of a conflict.
- Resources Without Red Tape. VC speed + DoD customer pull: access to test ranges, flight hours, and operator feedback while retaining startup agility.
- Career‑Defining Upside. Significant equity, best‑in‑class benefits, and the chance to see your product deliver in months, not decades.
As a key early member of our Engineering Organization, you will architect and execute the system safety and certification pathways for our emerging technology unmanned utility aircraft. This is a hands‑on role where you will shape safety processes, define product‑level safety strategy, and partner directly with head of certification, founders, engineering leads, and regulators. You will help the company from the perspective of system safety compliance in support of experimental certificate of airworthiness and eventual Type Certification roadmap.
What You’ll Do- Build the system safety function from the ground up, including safety processes, templates, and review boards.
- Perform and collaborate with internal stakeholders to educate on system safety assessments and analyses in accordance with ARP
4761 & ARP
4754A, including but not limited to Functional Hazard Assessments (FHAs), Preliminary System Safety Assessments (PSSAs), System Safety Assessments (SSAs), Fault Tree Analyses (FTAs), Common Mode Analyses (CMAs) and turn them into actionable engineering requirements. - Review design and development documentation for safety‑critical evaluation.
- Develop DAL allocations and guide software/hardware teams on DO‑178C and DO‑254 impacts.
- Partner directly with flight test, avionics, autonomy, mechanical, electrical engineering teams to embed safety into early designs.
- Identify safety‑critical gaps early and propose pragmatic, cert‑compliant mitigations.
- Support internal safety reviews including safety review board and cross‑team alignment.
- Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree in aerospace/mechanical/electrical engineering
- Performed system safety assessments and analyses in accordance with ARP
4761, ARP
4754A, MIL‑STD‑882E, including but not limited to FHAs, PSSAs, SSAs, FTAs, CMAs - 10+ years of experience leading compliance with CFR Part 25.1301, 25.1309 or equivalent in CFR Part 23/29 requirements working directly with the FAA and/or ODA on Type Certification projects.
- FAA DER and/or E‑UM Ticket in applicable Airworthiness Standards
- Experience in end‑to‑end UAS development, from design through certification (experimental SAC/Part 107)
Base Salary: $155,000 to 235,000 USD
The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills,…
(If this job is in fact in your jurisdiction, then you may be using a Proxy or VPN to access this site, and to progress further, you should change your connectivity to another mobile device or PC).