UAS Pilot/Flight Test & Mission Operator

The role

The UAS Pilot/Flight Test & Mission Operator supports the full lifecycle of unmanned aircraft operations from development to fielded customer missions. This role involves flying Group 1, 2, and 3 UAS platforms and performing aircraft building, maintenance, and composite structural repair.

What you will do

• Review flight-test plans, test cards, mission objectives, and risk assessments
• Participate in test-readiness reviews, safety reviews, and preflight briefings
• Coordinate with flight-test engineers, software and mechanical engineers, and customer stakeholders
• Prepare and inspect aircraft, payloads, batteries, and ground control stations
• Perform preflight functional checks of flight controls, navigation, and propulsion
• Operate Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 UAS platforms
• Execute test cards or mission plans and make clear callouts for aircraft state and hazards
• Maintain situational awareness of aircraft position, telemetry, and environmental conditions
• Record test-point completion, mission results, and aircraft behavior
• Build, assemble, and repair UAS airframes and subsystems including composite structural repair

Required qualifications

• High school diploma or equivalent
• Current FAA Remote Pilot Certificate with a Small UAS Rating, or ability to obtain one before conducting independent operations
• At least two years of UAS operations, flight testing, aviation maintenance, avionics, military aviation, robotics testing, or comparable technical experience
• Ability to configure, inspect, and safely operate remotely piloted aircraft across fixed-wing, multirotor, rotary-wing, or hybrid platforms
• Ability to fly Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 UAS platforms
• Ability to interpret test plans, test cards, mission plans, engineering drawings, and technical manuals
• Working knowledge of aircraft systems, flight controls, propulsion, electrical systems, navigation, communications, telemetry, airspace, and aviation weather
• Strong technical writing, observation, and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrated experience building, maintaining, and repairing UAS or model-aircraft airframes and subsystems
• Working knowledge of composite materials and basic repair techniques
• Ability to safely use hand tools, power tools, and basic fabrication or repair equipment
• Valid driver's license

Nice to have

• Associate or bachelor's degree in aerospace, aviation, engineering technology, unmanned systems, electronics, geography/surveying, or a related field
• Three or more years of flight-test, UAS, experimental-aircraft, developmental-testing, or fielded-mission experience
• Experience with PX4, ArduPilot, Mission Planner, QGroundControl, ATAK, or comparable flight and ground-control software
• Experience with electro-optical, infrared, LiDAR, multispectral, mapping, or other stabilized mission payloads
• Knowledge of test-readiness reviews, test-card discipline, envelope expansion, requirements verification, and configuration management
• Familiarity with controlled-airspace, night, operations-over-people, waiver-supported, or beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations
• Familiarity with Jira, Confluence, Git, MATLAB, Python, LabVIEW, or other engineering and issue-tracking tools
• Military UAS operator, air vehicle operator, instructor/standardization operator, test pilot, or flight-test engineering background
• Experience operating under a Safety Management System, AS9100, or formal configuration/quality-management process
• Formal training or hands-on experience in composite fabrication and repair

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
• 401k with 50% company match up to 6% of pay
• FSA
• HSA
• Life insurance
• Free daily lunch
• No meeting Fridays
• Unlimited PTO
• Casual dress code
• Pre-IPO stock option grants
• Relocation assistance

Before you apply

• Ability to satisfy customer, program, export-control, background, and drug-testing requirements
• Must currently hold, or be able to obtain and maintain, a U.S. security clearance

About the company

CHAOS Industries is a modern defense company with a multi-product portfolio powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™). Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company was founded in 2022 and has raised $1 billion in funding.