Flight Test Engineer

What you’ll do

Plan the test

• Design flight test campaigns, test cards, and pass/fail criteria from first flight through envelope expansion.
• Define what we measure: instrumentation, sensors, data acquisition, and telemetry requirements.
• Write test plans and hazard analyses, and contribute to flight safety documentation.
• Translate engineering questions into test points that can effectively find an answer.

Oversee the test

• Oversee execution of test cards and test criteria during test events, making sure each point is flown and captured correctly.
• Monitor aircraft behavior and data in real time against the test criteria.
• Recommend and make parameter changes when the test calls for it, in coordination with the test director and flight crew.
• Capture the conditions, configuration, and events of every flight with precision.

Turn data into answers

• Own the data: build and maintain the pipeline and tooling that turn raw flights into clean, usable engineering data.
• Analyze flight data and telemetry to characterize aircraft performance, stability, loads, and systems behavior.
• Run root cause analysis on anomalies and failures and drive them to resolution.
• Write quick-look and formal test reports that engineering trusts and acts on.
• Compare flight results against models and predictions and close the loop with the design teams.

Improve the test program

• Continuously improve the tools, processes, and standards that make Icarus flight test fast, safe, and repeatable.
• Travel to remote test sites and work in heat, cold, wind, and dust for long days on short notice.

What we’re looking for

• Bachelor's or graduate degree in aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or a related engineering discipline.
• Experience in flight test, developmental test and evaluation, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience planning and executing flight test, ideally including first-flight or build-up test programs.
• Familiarity with flight test fundamentals, ideally fixed-wing: test card design, envelope expansion, and test criteria.
• Strong data analysis skills: you can turn large, messy flight data sets into clear engineering conclusions.
• Proficiency in MATLAB, Python, or similar for data analysis, signal processing, and scripting.
• Strong Linux command line skills for debugging and troubleshooting.
• Working knowledge of instrumentation, telemetry, and data acquisition.
• Calm, decisive judgment under pressure, especially when jumping in on parameters with an aircraft in the air.
• Willingness to travel to remote test sites.
• Strong communicator, non-negotiable.
• High trust, extreme ownership, no ego.

Bonus

• Experience as a test director or test conductor, running test events and directing the flight crew.
• FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate or experience operating unmanned aircraft.
• Background building RC or UAS aircraft (SAE Aero, Design Build Fly, or serious hobbyist).
• Experience working within a flight test program at an early-stage company.

Why Icarus

• Meaningful equity
• Top market salary and bonuses
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Factory in El Segundo
• Real ownership, real hardware, real flight
• Small team, massive responsibility
• High signal (engineering) to noise (management) culture
• Dream desk setup
• Daily lunch
• Unlimited celsius

US salary range: $125,000 - $185,000 USD (base salary only; highly competitive equity grants are part of total compensation)