# Flight Test Engineer

**Company:** [Icarus](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/icarus)
**Location:** El Segundo, CA
**Role:** Hardware Engineering
**Salary:** $125k – $185k/yr
**Experience:** 3+ years
**Skills:** Flight Test, Test Card Design, Envelope Expansion, Data Analysis, MATLAB, Python, Linux, Instrumentation, Telemetry, Data Acquisition, Hazard Analysis, Root Cause Analysis
**Posted:** 2026-06-30

> The Flight Test Engineer designs and executes flight test campaigns for high-altitude solar-powered aircraft, oversees real-time test execution, analyzes telemetry data to characterize performance, and drives design improvements through reports and root cause analysis. Requires aerospace/mechanical engineering degree, flight test experience, strong data analysis skills in MATLAB/Python, and willingness to travel to remote test sites.

## Job Description

## 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)

## Similar roles

- [Mechanical Engineer](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/bbeaaf5b-4399-4af1-873d-7060b11b48e6) - Crusoe - Arvada, CO - $125k – $145k/yr
- [Mechanical Engineer - Plumbing & HVAC](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/3a33f1a5-aa1e-4184-a8bb-6769fec22347) - Crusoe - Arvada, CO - $125k – $145k/yr
- [Electrical Engineer (Sustaining/Validation)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/3e942d46-f2c8-4e2f-8aab-93de02bb1c9f) - Skydio - San Mateo, CA - $127k – $180k/yr
- [Electrical Engineer (all levels)](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/87a1e980-4055-4604-922e-77b2f1b44cde) - Skydio - San Mateo, CA - $128k – $240k/yr
- [AV Mechanical Design, Manager](https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/dc7bb9dd-ae6b-463d-87a8-22fd71006407) - Nuro - Mountain View, CA - $120k – $180k/yr

**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/23d7e855-573c-45e8-ab50-563f8b0d5098
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/23d7e855-573c-45e8-ab50-563f8b0d5098