Flight Test Engineer

The role

You will lead the planning, preparation, and execution of flight and ground test campaigns across all Poseidon Aerospace flight platforms. You will bridge the gap between design engineering and real-world operations for full vehicle platforms.

What you will do

• Develop flight test plans, test cards, and functional hazard analyses.
• Act as Test Director or Responsible Engineer during ground runs, taxi tests, and envelope-expansion flight test events.
• Monitor real-time telemetry during flights.
• Collect, process, and interpret flight test data using scripting tools.
• Define requirements for and support the installation of flight test instrumentation, sensors, and data acquisition systems.
• Partner with design teams to define objective pass/fail validation criteria.
• Lead pre-flight briefings and post-test debriefs.
• Enforce strict safety protocols on the flight line.
• Maintain traceability between regulatory/design requirements and test results.
• Write formal flight test reports documenting system anomalies, performance metrics, and airworthiness findings.

Required qualifications

• 5+ years as an experimental flight test engineer, or in aerospace systems validation, or in UAS/aviation flight operations.
• Bachelor’s Degree in related field or equivalent experience
• Overall airplane-level familiarization, including aircraft operations and performance across fixed-wing platforms.
• Proven track record drafting detailed flight test cards, managing test configurations, and operating within highly structured flight test environments.
• Proficiency in MATLAB, Python, or similar languages for processing, reducing, and visualizing large flight-log datasets.
• Strong foundational knowledge of data acquisition systems (DAQ), telemetry hardware, and sensor calibration.
• Hands-on problem solver comfortable troubleshooting complex electrical, mechanical, or software anomalies on the flight line.
• Willingness to work outdoors at active test ranges under varying weather conditions.

Nice to have

• FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate or a private pilot’s license (PPL).
• Experience making aviation-standard VHF radio calls and communicating clearly in high-workload control room environments.
• Background working with heavy or large-scale remotely operated vehicles / autonomous systems (Group 3-5 UAS).
• Familiarity with FAA experimental certification processes, airworthiness standards, or military test protocols (MIL-STD).
• Basic CAD experience for designing simple test brackets, fixtures, or harness layouts.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Meaningful early-stage equity
• Relocation support if applicable
• Employee Health Benefit Plans
• 6% Retirement matching
• Flexible PTO
• Free lunches, snacks, and a stocked fridge at our offices
• AI tools and subscriptions

About the company

Poseidon Aerospace builds and operates full-size autonomous cargo aircraft. The company is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with locations in Washington DC, Oregon, and Maine.