Principal Engineer, cUAS Lead, Omen

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The Maneuver Dominance team at Anduril develops operationally relevant, multi-asset autonomy. Omen is Anduril’s hover-to-cruise autonomous air vehicle (AAV) that packs the endurance, payload, and mission flexibility of much larger airplanes into a novel runway-independent Group 3 platform. Omen can operate from ship decks, beaches, or remote island clearings, providing true runway independence and freedom of maneuver across defense and civilian domains. Omen is the first tail-sitter aircraft with a mass-production contract, with an order of 50 systems representing a decisive investment that anchors production and accelerates the development of future systems.

ABOUT THE JOB

Small drones are hard to hit. Hitting them from a moving aircraft is harder. We need a Principal Engineer to own Omen’s airborne counter-UAS effector payload end to end, and to build the team around it.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own the counter-UAS effector payload end to end, from first prototype to qualified production hardware.
• Design the effector and firing system. Mounting structure, recoil and impulse management, feed and cycling, safe and arm interlocks.
• Own the steering hardware. Size the actuators, gearing, and drives, and design the isolation that protects the airframe from firing loads and the effector from rotor wash.
• Hold the pointing error budget and know where every part of it goes.
• Select and evaluate the sensors that range and locate the target. Bench and flight characterization for range accuracy, latency, and track quality against small targets in clutter.
• Build and lead the team. Hire across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and test, set the technical bar, and establish how the team works.
• Set the payload roadmap, balancing near-term demonstrations against the architecture that has to carry into production.
• Own payload interface control with the vehicle and mission system teams. Mounting and alignment, power and signal definitions, harnessing, time sync.
• Plan and run ground and flight test campaigns, including live range events, and lead the root-cause work when results do not match prediction.
• Take it to production. Design for manufacturability, tolerance and reliability analysis, supplier selection, first article, acceptance test.
• Work safety and compliance on safe and arm architecture, range safety, and export control.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 10+ years designing electromechanical hardware, including at least one product you carried from concept to production
• Strong engineering background, ideally in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Aerospace, or Electrical Engineering
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams, including hiring
• Deep mechanical design capability: structures under high transient loads, precision mechanisms, tolerance stack-ups, and joint design
• Experience sizing actuators for precision pointing, and a working grasp of the control bandwidth tradeoffs that come with it
• Experience with vibration and shock isolation, including isolator selection and the dynamic analysis behind it
• Experience selecting and characterizing ranging sensors. Radar, lidar, EO/IR, or laser rangefinders
• Hands-on test experience, from rig design and instrumentation through the data analysis that closes a design question
• Experience taking hardware to production: DFM, supplier engagement, first article inspection, acceptance test
• Proficiency in CAD (NX, SolidWorks, or equivalent)
• Ability to travel about 25% with potential surges for test and demonstration events
• Eligible to obtain and maintain an active U.S. Secret security clearance

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Direct experience with weapon, effector, launcher, or ordnance-adjacent systems, including safe and arm design
• Counter-UAS experience, whether engagement chains, fire control, or targeting small unmanned aircraft
• VTOL, tail-sitter, or rotorcraft experience, and familiarity with the payload environment they create (vibration, EMI, rotor wash)
• Experience with stabilized pointing, gimbals, boresighting, or targeting chains
• Familiarity with fire control, including lead and ballistic solutions and sensor-to-effector latency
• Environmental qualification testing (MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461)
• Airworthiness experience with external stores
• MATLAB/Simulink, multibody dynamics, or FEA for transient structural loads
• Familiarity with ITAR/EAR as it applies to effector development
• C++ or Python for test automation and data analysis

US Salary Range

$220,000—$292,000 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, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including: 

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you’re supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

• No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.

• Please always verify communications:
  • Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
  • Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to [email protected]. 

• Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.

• What to Do If You Suspect Fraud: Should you encounter any questionable or fraudulent outreach claiming to be from Anduril, please report it immediately to [email protected]. Your proactive caution is invaluable in protecting your personal information and upholding the security and trustworthiness of our recruitment efforts.

 

Data Privacy

To view Anduril's candidate data privacy policy, please visit https://anduril.com/applicant-privacy-notice/. 

By submitting your application, you consent to Anduril Industries using a third-party service provider to conduct pre-employment risk, integrity, and due diligence screening and assessing potential risks as part of your application process. This third-party service provider provides risk-intelligence services that may include analysis of sanctions and watchlists, adverse media, public-record information, and other lawful open-source or commercial data sources. This third-party service provider does not act as a consumer reporting agency. Use of this provider helps to ensure compliance with applicable laws and protect technology, intellectual property, and organizational security.